Jane Eyre : an autobiography

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JANE EYRE.

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EDITED BY

C U E B E E BELL.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., CORNHILL.

1847.

London :
Printed by Stewart and Murray,
Old Bailey.

JANE EYRE.

CHAPTER I.

I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester
on the day which followed this sleepless night :
I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to
meet his eye. During the early part of the
morning, I momentarily expected his coming :
he was not in the frequent habit of entering
the school-room ; but he did step in for a few
minutes sometimes, and I had the" impression
that he was sure to visit it that day.

But the morning passed just as usual :
nothing happened to interrupt the quiet course
of Adele's studies ; only, soon after breakfast, I
heard some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr.
Rochester's chamber, Mrs. Fairfax's voice,
and Leah's, and the cook's — that is, John's
wife — and even John's own gruff tones. There
were exclamations of " What a mercy master
was not burnt in his bed!" "It is always

VOL. II. B

v. x

A JANE EYRE.

dangerous to keep a candle lit at night."
" How providential that he had presence of
mind to think of the water-jug ! " "I wonder
he waked nobody ! " " It is to be hoped he
will not take cold with sleeping on the library
sofa/' &c,

To much confabulation succeeded a sound
of scrubbing and setting to rights ; and when I
passed the room, in going down stairs to dinner,
I saw through the open door that all was again
restored to complete order : only the bed was
stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in
the window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass
dimmed with smoke. I was about to address
her ; for I wished to know what account had
been given of the affair : but, on advancing, I
saw a second person in the chamber — a
woman sitting on a chair by the bed-side, and
sewing rings to new curtains. That woman
was no other than Grace Poole.

There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as
usual ; in her brown stuff gown, her check
apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was
intent on her work, in which her whole
thoughts seemed absorbed : on her hard fore-
head, and in her common-place features, was
nothing either of the paleness or desperation
one would have expected to see marking the

JANE EYRE. 6

•

countenance of a woman who had attempted
murder ; and whose intended victim had fol-
lowed her last night to her lair, and (as I
"believed) charged her with the crime she
wished to perpetrate. I was amazed — con-
founded. She looked up while I still gazed at
her : no start, no increase or failure of colour
betrayed emotion, consciousness of guilt, or
fear of detection. She said, " Good morning,
Miss," in her usual phlegmatic and brief
manner ; and taking up another ring and
more tape, went on with her sewing.

" I will put her to some test," thought I :
" such absolute impenetrability is past com-
prehension."

" Good morning, Grace," I said. " Has
anything happened here 1 I thought I heard
the servants all talking together a while ago."

ie Only master had been reading in his bed
last night ; he fell asleep with his candle lit,
and the curtains got on fire : but, fortunately,
he awoke before the bed-clothes or the wood-
work caught, and contrived to quench the
flame with the water in the ewer."

" A strange affair ! " Itsaid, in a low voice :
then, looking at her fixedly, — " Did Mr.
Rochester wake nobody ? Did no one hear
him move ?"

b 2

% JANE EYRE.

She again raised her eyes to me ; and this
time there was something of consciousness in
their expression. She seemed to examine me
warily ; then she answered, —

" The servants sleep so far off, you know,
Miss, they would not be likely to hear. Mrs.
Fairfax's room and yours are the nearest to
master's; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard
nothing : when people get elderly, they often
sleep heavy." She paused, and then added,
with a sort of assumed indifference, but still in
a marked and significant tone, " But you are
young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper:
perhaps you may have heard a noise?"

" I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that
Leah, who was still polishing the panes, could
not hear me, " and at first I thought it was
Pilot : but Pilot cannot laugh ; and I am cer-
tain I heard a laugh, and a strange one."

She took a new needleful of thread, waxed
it carefully, threaded her needle with a steady
hand, and then observed, with perfect com-
posure,—

" It is hardly likely master would laugh, I
should think, Missf when he was in such
danger: you must have been dreaming."

" I was not dreaming," I said, with some
warmth: for her brazen coolness provoked me.

JANE EYRE. 5

Again she looked at Hie ; and with the same
scrutinizing and conscious eye.

" Have yon told master that you heard a
laugh ?" she inquired.

" I have not had the opportunity of speak-
ing to him this morning."

" You did not think of opening your door
and looking out into the gallery 1 " she further
asked.

She appeared to be cross-questioning me ;
attempting to draw from me information una-
wares : the idea struck me that if she disco-
vered I knew or suspected her guilt, she would
be playing off some of her malignant pranks
on me; I thought it advisable to be on my
guard.

" On the contrary," said I , " I bolted my
door."

" Then you are not in the habit of bolting
your door every night before you get into
bed?"

" Fiend ! she wants to know my habits
that she may lay her plans accordingly ! " In-
dignation again prevailed over prudence; I
replied sharply : " Hitherto I have often
omitted to fasten the bolt : I did not think it
necessary. I was not aware any danger or
annoyance was to be dreaded at Thornfield-

D JANE EYRE.

Hall : but in future (and I laid marked stress
on the words) I shall take good care to make
all secure before I venture to lie down."

" It will be wise so to do ;" was her answer :
" this neighbourhood is as quiet as any I know,
and I never heard of the hall being attempted
by robbers since it was a house ; though there
are hundreds of pounds' worth of plate in the
plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for
such a large house there are very few servants,
because master has never lived here much ;
and when he does come, being a bachelor, he
needs little waiting on : but I always think it
best to err on the safe side; a door is soon
fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt
between one and any mischief that may be
about. A deal of people, Miss, are for trust-
ing all to Providence ; but I say Providence
will not dispense with the means, though he
often blesses them when they are used dis-
creetly." And here she closed her harangue :
a long one for her, and uttered with the de-
mureness of a Quakeress.

I still stood absolutely dumbfoundered at
what appeared to me her miraculous self-pos-
session and most inscrutable hypocrisy ; when
the cook entered.

* Mrs. Poole," said she, " addressing Grace,

JANE EYRE. /

" the servants' dinner will soon be ready : will
you come down ? "

" No ; just put my pint of porter and bit of
pudding on a tray, and I '11 carry it up-stairs."

"You "11 have some meat ?"

" Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that 's
all."

" And the sago ? "

" Never mind it, at present : I shall be
coming down before tea-time : I '11 make it
myself."

The cook here turned to* me, saying that
Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me; so I de-
parted.

I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax's account of the
curtain conflagration during dinner, so much,
was I occupied in pnzzling my brains over the
enigmatical character of Grace Poole; and still
more in pondering the problem of her position
at Thornfielcl : in questioning why she had not
been given into custody that morning; or at
the very least dismissed from her master's ser-
vice. He had almost as much as declared his
conviction of her criminality last night : what
mysterious cause withheld him from accusing
her? Why had he enjoined me too to secresy ?
It was strange : a bold, vindictive and haughty
gentleman seemed somehow in the power of

8 JANE EYRE.

one of the meanest of his dependents; so much
in her power, that even when she lifted her
hand against his life, he dared nqt openly
charge her with the attempt, much less punish
her for it.

Had Grace been young and handsome, I
should have been tempted to think that ten-
derer feelings than prudence or fear influenced
Mr. Eochester in her behalf; but hard-favoured
and matronly as she was, the idea could not
be admitted. "Yet," I reflected, "she has
been young once ; her youth would be con-
temporary with her master's : Mrs. Fairfax
told me once, she had lived here many years.
I don't think she can ever have been pretty ;
but for aught I know she may possess origi-
nality and strength of character to compen-
sate for the want of personal advantages.
Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided
and eccentric : Grace is eccentric at least.
What if a former caprice (a freak very possible
to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his)
has delivered him into her power, and she
now exercises over his actions a secret influ-
ence, the result of his own indiscretion, which
he cannot shake off and dare not disregard ?"
But, having reached this point of conjecture,
Mrs. Poole's square, flat figure, and uncomely,

JANE EYRE. b>

dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to
my mind's eye, that I thought " No ; impos-
sible ! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet,"
suggested the secret voice which talks to us in
our own hearts, "you are not beautiful either,
and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you : at
any rate you have often felt as if he did ; and
last night — remember his words; remember
his look ; remember his voice ! "

I well remembered all : language, glance and
tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed.
I was now in the school-room ; Adele was
drawing ; I bent over her and directed her
pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.

" Qu'avez-vous, Mademoiselle?" said she;
" Vos doigts tremblent comme la feuille, et vos
joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des
cerises ! "

" I am hot, Adele, with stooping !" She
went on sketching, I went on thinking.

I hastened to drive from my mind the
hateful notion I had been conceiving respect-
ing Grace Poole: it disgusted me. I compared
myself with her, and found we wrere different.
Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady ; and
she spoke truth : I was a lady. And now I
looked much better than I did when Bessie
saw me : I had more colour and more flesh ;

10 JANE EYRE.

more life, more vivacity ; "because I had brighter
hopes and keener enjoyments.

" Evening approaches," said I, as I looked
towards the window. " I have never heard
Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-
day ; but surely I shall see him before night : I
feared the meeting in the morning ; now I
desire it, because expectation has been so long
baffled that it is grown impatient."

When dusk actually closed, and when Adele
left me to go and play in the nursery with
Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened
for the bell to ring below ; I listened for Leah
coming up with a message ; I fancied some-
times I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and
I turned to the door, expecting it to open and
admit him. The door remained shut: dark-
ness only came in through the window. Still
it was not late : he often sent for me at seven
and eight o'clock, and it was yet but six.
Surely I should not be wholly disappointed
to-night, when I had so many things to say to
him ! I wanted again to introduce the subject
of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would
answer ; I wanted to ask him plainly if he
really believed it was she who had made last
night's hideous attempt ; and if so, why he
kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered

JANE EYRE. 11

whether my curiosity irritated him ; I knew
the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by
turns ; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and
a sure instinct always prevented me from
going too far: beyond the verge of provocation
I never ventured ; on the extreme brink I liked
well to try my skill. Retaining every minute
form of respect, every propriety of my station,
I could still meet him in argument without
fear or uneasy restraint ; this suited both him
and me.

A tread creaked on the stairs at last ; Leah
made her appearance : but it was only to in-
timate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax's
room. Thither I repaired, glad at least to go
down stairs ; for that brought me, I imagined,
nearer to Mr. Rochester's presence.

" You must want your tea," said the good
lady as I joined her ; " you ate so little at
dinner. I am afraid," she continued, " you
are not well to-clay : you look flushed and
feverish."

" Oh, quite well ! I never felt better."

"Then you must prove it by evincing a
good appetite ; will you fill the tea-pot while
I knit off this needle?" Having completed
her task, she rose to draw down the blind
which she had hitherto kept up ; by way, I

12

JANE EYRE.

suppose, of making the most of daylight :
though dusk was now fast deepening into total
obscurity.

" It is fair to-night," said she, as she looked
through the panes, "though not starlight:
Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favour-
able day for his journey."

" Journey !^-Is Mr. Rochester gone any-
where ? I did not know he was out."

" Oh, he set off the moment he had break-
fasted ! He is gone to the Leas ; Mr. Esh-
ton's place, ten miles on the other side Mill-
cote : I believe there is quite a party assem-
bled there ; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn,
Colonel Dent and others."

" Do you expect him. back to-night?"

"No — nor to-morrow either; I should think
he is very likely to stay a week or more :
when these fine, fashionable people get to-
gether, they are so surrounded by elegance
and gaiety ; so well provided with all that can
please and entertain, they are in no hurry to
separate. Gentlemen, especially, are often in
request on such occasions ; and Mr. Rochester
is so talented and so lively in society, that I
believe he is a general favourite : the ladies
are very fond of him ; though you would not
think his appearance calculated to recommend

JANE EYRE. 13

him particularly in their eyes : but I suppose
his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his
wealth and good blood, make amends for any
little fault of look."

" Are there ladies at the Leas?"

" There are Mrs. Eshton and her three
daughters — very elegant young ladies indeed ;
and there are the honourable Blanche and
Mary Ingram ; most beautiful women, I sup-
pose : indeed I have seen Blanche, six or seven
years, since when she was a girl of eighteen.
She came here to a Christmas ball and party
Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen
the dining-room that day — how richly it was
decorated, how brilliantly lit up! I should
think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen
present — all of the first county-families ; and
Miss Ingram was considered the belle of the
evening."

" You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax : what
was she like?"

" Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors
were thrown open ; and, as it was Christmas-
time, the servants were allowed to assemble in
the hall, to hear some of the ladies sing and
play. Mr. Rochester would have me to come
in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and
watched them. I never saw a more splendid

14 JANE EYRE.

scene : the ladies were magnificently dressed ;
most of them — at least most of the younger
ones — looked handsome; but Miss Ingram was
certainly the queen."

" And what was she like ?"

"Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long,
graceful neck ; olive complexion, dark and
clear ; noble features ; eyes rather like Mr.
Rochester's : large and black, and as brilliant
as her jewels. And then she had such a fine
head of hair ; raven-black, and so becomingly
arranged : a crown of thick plaits behind, and
in front the longest, the glossiest curls I
ever saw. She was dressed in pure white;
an amber-coloured scarf was passed over her
shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side,
and descending in long, fringed ends below
her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower,
too, in her hair : it contrasted well with the
jetty mass of her curls."

" She was greatly admired, of course ?"

" Yes, indeed : and not only for her beauty,
but for her accomplishments. She was one of
the ladies who sang : a gentleman accompanied
her on the piano. She and Mr. Rochester
sung a duet."

" Mr. Rochester ! I was not aware he could
sing."

JANE EYRE. 15

" Oh ! he has a fine bass voice, and an
excellent taste for music."

" And Miss Ingram : what sort of a voice
had she?"

" A very rich and powerful one : she sang
delightfully ; it was a treat to listen to her ; —
and she played afterwards. I am no judge of
music, but Mr. Rochester is ; and I heard him
say her execution was remarkably good."

" And this beautiful and accomplished lady
is not yet married ?"

" It appears not : I fancy neither she nor
her sister have very large fortunes. Old Lord
Ingram's estates were chiefly entailed, and the
eldest son came in for everything almost."

" But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or
gentleman has taken a fancy to her : Mr.
Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he
not?"

" Oh ! yes. But, you see, there is a consider-
able difference in age : Mr. Rochester is near
forty ; she is but twenty-five."

" What of that ? More unequal matches
are made every day."

?' True : yet I should scarcely fancy Mr.
Rochester would entertain an idea of the sort.
— But you eat nothing: you have scarcely
tasted since you began tea."

16 JANE EYRE.

" No : I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let
me have another cup ?"

I was about again to revert to the proba-
bility of a union between Mr. Rochester and
the beautiful Blanche : but Adele came in,
and the conversation was turned into another
channel.

When once more alone, I reviewed" the
information I had got ; looked into my heart,
examined its thoughts and feelings, and endea-
voured to bring back with a strict hand such
as had been straying through imagination's
boundless and trackless waste, into the safe
fold of common sense.

Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having
given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, senti-
ments I had been cherishing since last night —
of the general state of mind in which I had
indulged for nearly a fortnight past ; Reason
having come forward and told, in her own
quiet way, a plain, unvarnished tale, showing
how I had rejected the real and rabidly de-
voured the ideal ; — I pronounced judgment to
this effect : —

That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had
never breathed the breath of life : that a more
fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on
sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were
nectar.

JANE EYRE. 17

" You" I said, " a favourite with Mr.
Rochester? You gifted with the power of
pleasing him? You of importance to him in
any way ? Go ! your folly sickens me. And
you have derived pleasure from occasional
tokens of preference — equivocal tokens, shown
by a gentleman of family, and a man of the
world, to a dependent and a novice. How
dared you? Poor stupid dupe! — Could not
even self-interest make you wiser? You re-
peated to yourself this morning the brief scene
of last night ? — Cover your face and be
ashamed! He said something in praise of
your eyes, did he ? Blind puppy ! Open
their bleared lids and look on your own ac-
cursed senselessness ! It does good to no
woman to be flattered by her superior, who
cannot possibly intend to marry her ; and it is
madness in all women to let a secret love
kindle within them, which, if unreturned and
unknown, must devour the life that feeds it ;
and, if discovered and responded to, must lead,
ignis fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there
is no extrication.

" Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence :
to-morrow, place the glass before you, and
draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully ;
without softening one defect: omit no harsh

VOL. II. c

18 JANE EYRE.

line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity;
write under it, ' Portrait of a Governess, dis-
connected, poor, and plain.'

" Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory
— you have one prepared in your drawing-
box : take your palette, mix your freshest,
finest, clearest tints ; choose your most deli-
cate camel-hair pencils ; delineate carefully
the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in
your softest shades and sweetest hues, accord-
ing to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax
of Blanche Ingram : remember the raven
ringlets, the oriental eye ; — what ! you revert
to Mr. Rochester's as a model ! Order ! No
snivel ! — no sentiment ! — no regret ! I will
endure only sense and resolution. Recall the
august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian
neck and bust: let the round and dazzling
arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit
neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; por-
tray faithfully the attire, aerial lace and glis-
tening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose :
call it ( Blanche, an accomplished lady of,
rank.'

" Whenever, in future, you should chance
to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you,
take out these two pictures and compare
them : say, ' Mr. Rochester might probably

JANE EYRE. 19

win that noble lady's love, if he chose to strive
for it; is it likely he would waste a serious
thought on this indigent and insignificant
plebeian V "

" I '11 do it," I resolved : and having framed
this determination, I grew calm, and fell
asleep.

I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed
to sketch my own portrait in crayons ; and in
less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory
miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram.
It looked a lovely face enough, and when
compared with the real head in chalk, the
contrast was as great as self-control could
desire. I derived benefit from the task : it
had kept my head and hands employed, and
had given force and fixedness to the new im-
pressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my
heart.

Ere long I had reason to congratulate my-
self on the course of wholesome discipline to
which I had thus forced my feelings to submit :
thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent oc-
currences with a decent calm ; which, had they
found me unprepared, I should probably have
been unequal to maintain even externally.

c 2

20 JANE EYRE.

CHAPTEE II.

A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr.
Rochester : ten days ; and still he did not
come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be
surprised if he were to go straight from the
Leas to London, and thence to the continent,
and not show his face again at Thornfield for
a year to come : he had not unfrequently
quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and
unexpected. When I heard this I was begin-
ning to feel a strange chill and failing at the
heart. I was actually permitting myself to
experience a sickening sense of disappoint-
ment: but rallying my wits, and recollecting
my principles, I at once called my sensations
to order ; and it was wonderful how I got over
the temporary blunder — how I cleared up the
mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's move-
ments a matter in which I had any cause to
take a vital interest. Not that I humbled

JANE EYRE. 21

myself by a slavish notion of inferiority : on
the contrary, I just said: —

" You have nothing to do with the master
of Thornfield, further than to receive the
salary he gives you for teaching his protegee,
and to be grateful for such respectful and kind
treatment as, if yon do your duty, you have a
right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is
the only tie he seriously acknowledges be-
tween you and him : so don't make him the
object of your fine feelings, your raptures,
agonies, and so forth. He is not of your
order : keep to your caste ; and be too self-
respecting to lavish the love of the whole
heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is
not wanted and would be despised."

I went on with my day's business tranquilly ;
but ever and anon, vague suggestions kept
wandering across my brain of reasons why I
should quit Thornfield ; and I kept involunta-
rily framing advertisements and pondering con-
jectures about new situations : these thoughts
I did not think it necessary to check; they
might germinate and bear fruit if they could.

Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of
a fortnight, when the post brought Mrs. Fair-
fax a letter.

"It is from the master," said she, as she

22 JANE EYRE.

looked at the direction. " Now I suppose we
shall know whether we are to expect his re-
turn or not."

And while she broke the seal and perused
the document, I went on taking my coffee :
(we were at breakfast) it was hot, and I attri-
buted to that circumstance a fiery glow which
suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand
shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the
contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not
choose to consider.

" Well — I sometimes think we are too quiet ;
but we run a chance of being busy enough
now : for a little while at least," said Mrs.
Fairfax, still holding the note before her spec-
tacles.

Ere I permitted myself to request an ex-
planation, I tied the string of Adele's pinafore
which happened to be loose : having helped her
also to another bun and refilled her mug with
milk, I said nonchalantly : —

" Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon,
I suppose?"

" Indeed, he is — in three days, he says ; that
will be next Thursday; and not alone either. I
don't know how many of the fine people at
the Leas are coming with him : he sends
directions for all the best bed-rooms to be

JANE EYRE. 23

prepared ; and the library and drawing-rooms
are to be cleaned out ; and I am to get more
kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Mill-
cote, and from wherever else I can; and the
ladies will bring their maids and the gentle-
men their valets : so we shall have a full
house of it." And Mrs. Fairfax swallowed
her breakfast and hastened away to commence
operations.

The three days were, as she had foretold,
busy enough. I had thought all the rooms
at Thornfield beautifully clean and well-ar-
ranged : but it appears I was mistaken. Three
women were got to help ; and such scrubbing,
such brushing, such washing of paint and
beating of carpets, such taking down and
putting up of pictures, such polishing of mir-
rors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bed-
rooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds
on hearths, I never beheld, either before or
since. Adele ran quite wild in the midst of
it : the preparations for company and the
prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her
into ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look
over all her "toilettes" as she called frocks; to
furbish up any that were " passees," and to air
and arrange the new. For herself, she did
nothing but caper about in the front chambers,

24 JANE EYRE.

jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the
mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows
before the enormous fires roaring in the chim-
neys. From school duties she was exonerated :
Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service,
and I was all day in the store-room, helping
(or hindering) her and the cook ; learning to
make custards and cheesecakes and French
pastry, to truss game and garnish dessert-
dishes.

The party were expected to arrive on Thurs-
day afternoon, in time for dinner at six.
During the intervening period I had no time
to nurse chimeras; and I believe I was as
active and gay as anybody— Adele excepted.
Still, now and then, I received a damping
check to my cheerfulness ; and was, in spite of
myself, thrown back on the region of doubts
and portents, and dark conjectures. This was
when I chanced to see the third story staircase
door (which of late had always been kept
locked) open slowly, and give passage to the
form of Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron,
and handkerchief: when I watched her glide
along the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a
list slipper; when I saw her look into the
bustling, topsy-turvy bed-rooms, — -just say a
word, perhaps, to the charwomen about the

JANE EYRE. 25

proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble
mantelpiece, or take stains from papered walls,
and then pass on. She would thus descend to
the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, smoke
a moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back,
carrying her pot of porter with her, for her
private solace, in her own gloomy upper
haunt. Only one hour in the twenty-four did
she pass with her fellow-servants below ; all
the rest of her time was spent in some low-
ceiled, oaken chamber of the second story :
there she sat and sewed — and probably laughed
drearily to herself, — as companionless as a
prisoner in his dungeon.

The strangest thing of all was, that not a
soul in the house, except me, noticed her
habits, or seemed to marvel at them : no one
discussed her position or employment ; no one
pitied her solitude or isolation. I once, indeed,
overheard part of a dialogue between Leah and
one of the charwomen, of which Grace formed
the subject. Leah had been saying something
I had not caught, and the charwoman re-
marked :—

" She gets good wages, I guess?"
" Yes," said Leah ; " I wish I had as good :
not that mine are to complain of, — there 's no
stinginess at Thornfield ; but they 're not one-

26 JANE EYRE.

fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she
is laying by : she goes every quarter to the
bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but
she has saved enough to keep her independent
if she liked to leave ; but I suppose she 's got
used to the place : and then she 's not forty yet,
and strong and able for anything. It is too
soon for her to give up business."

" She is a good hand, I daresay," said the
charwoman.

" Ah ! — she understands what she has to do,
- — nobody better," rejoined Leah, significantly;
" and it is not every one could fill her shoes :
not for all the money she gets."

" That it is not !" was the reply. " I wonder
whether master "

The charwoman was going on ; but here
Leah turned and perceived me, and she in-
stantly gave her companion a nudge.

"Doesn't she know?" I heard the woman
whisper.

Leah shook her head, and the conversation
was of course dropped. All I had gathered from
it amounted to this, — that there was a mystery
at Thornfield ; and that from participation in
that mystery, I was purposely excluded.

Thursday came : all work had been com-
pleted the previous evening ; carpets were laid

JANE EYRE. 27

down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white
counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, fur-
niture rubbed, flowers piled in vases : both
chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright
as hands could make them. The hall, too, was
scoured; and the great carved clock, as well as
the steps and bannisters of the staircase, were
polished to the brightness of glass : in the
dining-room, the sideboard flashed resplendent
with plate ; in the drawing-room and boudoir,
vases of exotics bloomed on all sides.

Afternoon arrived : Mrs. Fairfax assumed
her best black satin gown, her gloves, and her
gold watch ; for it was her part to receive the
company, — to conduct the ladies to their rooms,
&c. Adele, too, would be dressed ; though I
thought she had little chance of being intro-
duced to the party, that day at least. However,
to please her, I allowed Sophie to apparel her
in one of her short, full muslin frocks. For
myself, I had no need to make any change ;
I should not be called upon to quit my sanc-
tum of the school-room : for a sanctum it was
now become to me, — " a very pleasant refuge
in time of trouble."

It had been a mild, serene spring day : one
of those days which towards the end of March
or the beginning of April, rise shining over

28 JANE EYRE.

the earth as heralds of summer. It was draw-
ing to an end now ; but the evening was
even warm, and I sat at work in the school-
room with the window open.

" It gets late ;" said Mrs. Fairfax, entering
in rustling state. cc I am glad I ordered
dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester
mentioned ; for it is past six now. I have sent
John down to the gates to see if there is any-
thing on the road : one can see a long way
from thence in the direction of Millcote."
She went to the window. " Here he is !" said
she. " Well, John," (leaning out) " any news ? '1

" They 're coming, ma'am," was the answer.
" They '11 be here in ten minutes."

Adele flew to the window. I followed ; taking
care to stand on one side, so that, screened by
the curtain, I could see without being seen.

The ten minutes John had given seemed
very long, but at last wheels were heard ; four
equestrians galloped up the drive, and after
them came two open carriages. Fluttering
veils and waving plumes filled the vehicles;
two of the cavaliers were young, dashing look-
ing gentlemen ; the third was Mr. Rochester
on his black horse, Mesrour ; Pilot bounding
before him: at his side rode a lady, and he and
she were the first of the party. Her purple

JANE EYRE. 29

riding-habit almost swept the ground, her veil
streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its
transparent folds, and gleaming through them,
shone rich raven ringlets.

" Miss Ingram ! " exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax,
and away she hurried to her post below.

The cavalcade, following the sweep of the
drive, quickly turned the angle of the house,
and I lost sight of it. Adele now petitioned
to go down ; but I took her on my knee and
gave her to understand that she must not on
any account think of venturing in sight of the
ladies, either now or at any other time, unless
expressly sent for : that Mr. Rochester would
be very angry, &c. " Some natural tears she
shed" on being told this; but as I began to
look very grave, she consented at last to wipe
them.

A joyous stir was now audible in the hall:
gentlemen's deep tones, and ladies' silvery ac-
cents blent harmoniously together, and distin-
guishable above all, though not loud, was the
sonorous voice of the master of Thornfield
Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests
under its roof. Then light steps ascended the
stairs ; and there was a tripping through the
gallery, and soft, cheerful laughs, and opening
and closing doors, and, for a time, a hush.

30 JANE EYRE.

" Elles changent de toilettes," said Adele ;
who, listening attentively, had followed every
movement ; and she sighed.

" Chez maman," said she, " quand il y avait
du monde, je les suivais partout, au salon et a
leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes
de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et
c'etait si amusant : comme cela on apprend."

" Don't you feel hungry, Adele ?"

" Mais oui, mademoiselle : voila cinq ou six
heures que nous n'avons pas mange."

" Well now, while the ladies are in their
rooms, I will venture down and get you some-
thing to eat."

And issuing from my asylum with precau-
tion, I sought a back-stairs which conducted
directly to the kitchen. All in that region
was fire and commotion ; the soup and fish
were in the last stage of projection, and the
cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of
mind and body threatening spontaneous com-
bustion. In the servants' hall two coachmen
and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat
round the fire ; the Abigails I suppose were
up-stairs with their mistresses : the new ser-
vants that had been hired from Millcote, were
bustling about everywhere. Threading this
chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I

JANE EYRE. 31

took possession of a cold chicken, a roll of
bread, some tarts, a plate or two and a knife
and fork : with this booty I made a hasty
retreat. I had regained the gallery, and was
just shutting the back-door behind me, when
an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies
were about to issue from their chambers. I
could not proceed to the school-room without
passing some of their doors, and running the
risk of being surprised with my cargo of
victuallage ; so I stood still at this end, which,
being windowless, was dark : quite dark now,
for the sun was set and twilight gathering.

Presently the chambers gave up their fair
tenants one after another : each came out
gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lus-
trous through the dusk. For a moment they
stood grouped together at the other extremity
of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet
subdued vivacity : they then descended the
staircase, almost as noiselessly as a bright mist
rolls down a hill. Their collective appearance
had left on me an impression of high-born
elegance, such as I had never before received.

I found Adele peeping through the school-
room door, which she held ajar. " What beau-
tiful ladies!" cried she in English. "Oh I
wish I might go to them ! Do you think Mr.

32 JANE EYRE.

Rochester will send for us by-and-by, after
dinner?"

" No, indeed, I don't ; Mr. Rochester has
something else to think about. Nevermind
the ladies to-night ; perhaps you will see them
to-morrow : here is your dinner."

She was really hungry, so the chicken and
tarts served to divert her attention for a time.
It was well I secured this forage; or both she,
I and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of
our repast, would have run a chance of getting
no dinner at all : every one down stairs was
too much engaged to think of us. The dessert
was not carried out till after nine, and at ten,
footmen were still running to and fro with
trays and coffee-cups. I allowed Adele to sit
up much later than usual ; for she declared she
could not possibly go to sleep while the doors
kept opening and shutting below, and people
bustling about. Besides, she added, a mes-
sage might possibly come from Mr. Rochester
when she was undressed ; " et alors quel dom-
mage ! "

I told her stories as long as she would listen
to them ; and then for a change, I took her out
into the gallery. The hall lamp was now lit,
and it amused her to look over the balustrade
and watch the servants passing backwards and

JANE EYRE. 33

forwards. When the evening was far ad-
vanced, a sound of music issued from the
drawing-room, whither the piano had been
removed ; Adele and I sat down on the top step
of the stairs to listen. Presently a voice blent
with the rich tones of the instrument : it was a
lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were.
The solo over, a duet followed, and then a
glee : a joyous conversational murmur filled
up the intervals. I listened long : suddenly
I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on
analyzing the mingled sounds, and trying to
discriminate amidst the confusion of accents
those of Mr. Rochester ; and when it caught
them, which it soon did, it found a further
task in framing the tones, rendered by dis-
tance inarticulate, into words.

The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adele,
whose head leant against my shoulder ; her
eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in
my arms and carried her off to bed. It was
near one before the gentlemen and ladies
sought their chambers.

The next day was as fine as its predecessor ;
it was devoted by the party to an excursion to
some site in the neighbourhood. They set out
early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the
rest in carriages ; I witnessed both the depar-

VOL. II. D

34 JANE EYRE.

ture and the return. Miss Ingram, as before,
was the only lady equestrian ; and as before,
Mr. Rochester galloped at her side : the two
rode a little apart from the rest. I pointed out
this circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was
standing at the window with me : —

"You said it was not likely they should
think of being married," said I, " but you see
Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of
the other ladies."

" Yes ; I daresay : no doubt he admires
her."

" And she him," I added ; " look how she
leans her head towards him as if she were con-
versing confidentially ! I wish I could see
her face : I have never had a glimpse of it
yet."

" You will see her this evening ;" answered
Mrs. Fairfax. " I happened to remark to
Mr. Rochester how much Adele wished to
be introduced to the ladies, and he said :
6 Oh ! let her come into the drawing-room
after dinner ; and request Miss Eyre to ac-
company her/"

" Yes — he said that from mere politeness :
I need not go, I am sure," I answered.

" Well — I observed to him that as you
were unused to company, I did not think you

JAN'E EYRE. 35

would like appearing before so gay a party —
all strangers ; and he replied, in his quick
way : ' Nonsense ! If she objects, tell her it
is my particular wish ; and if she resists, say I
shall come and fetch her in case of contumacy.'"

" I will not give him that trouble ;" I an-
swered. " I will go, if no better may be : but
I don't like it. Shall you be there, Mrs.
Fairfax?"

" No ; I pleaded off, and he admitted my
plea. I '11 tell you how to manage so as to
avoid the embarrassment of making a formal
entrance, which is the most disagreeable part
of the business. You must go into the draw-
ing-room while it is empty, before the ladies
leave the dinner-table ; choose your seat in any
quiet nook you like ; you need not stay long
after the gentlemen come in, unless you please :
just let Mr. Rochester see you are there and
then slip away — nobody will notice you."

" Will these people remain long, do you
think?"

" Perhaps two or three weeks ; certainly not
more. After the Easter recess, Sir George
Lynn, who was lately elected member for
Millcote, will have to go up to town and take
his seat ; I dare say Mr. Rochester will ac-
company him : it surprises me that he has

d2

36 JANE EYRE.

already made so protracted a stay at Thorn-
field.

It was with some trepidation that I per-
ceived the hour approach when I was to
repair with my charge to the drawing-room.
Adele had been in a state of ecstacy all day,
after hearing she was to be presented to the
ladies in the evening ; and it was not till
Sophie commenced the operation of dressing
her, that she sobered down. Then the im-
portance of the process quickly steadied her ;
and by the time she had her curls arranged
in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her pink
satin frock put on, her long sash tied, and her
lace mittens adjusted, she looked as grave as
any judge. No need to warn her not to dis-
arrange her attire : when she was dressed, she
sat demurely down in her little chair, taking
care previously to lift up the satin skirt for
fear she should crease it, and assured me she
would not stir thence till I was ready. This I
quickly was: my best dress (the silver-grey
one, purchased for Miss Temple's wedding
and never worn since) was soon put on ; my
hair was soon smoothed ; my sole ornament,
the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We descended.

Fortunately there was another entrance to
the drawing-room than that through the saloon

JANE EYRE. 37

where they were all seated at dinner. We found
the apartment vacant; a large fire burning
silently on the marble hearth, and wax candles
shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite
flowers with which the tables were adorned.
The crimson curtain hung before the arch :
slight as was the separation this drapery
formed from the party in the adjoining saloon,
they spoke in so low a key that nothing of
their conversation could be distinguished be-
yond a soothing murmur.

Adele, who appeared to be still under the
influence of a most solemnizing impression,
sat down without a word on the footstool I
pointed out to her. I retired to a window seat,
and taking a book from a table near, en-
deavoured to read. Adele brought her stool to
my feet ; ere long she touched my knee.

"What is it, Adele?"

" Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendre une
seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, Mademoiselle ?
Seulement pour completer ma toilette."

" You think too much of vour ' toilette/
Adele : but you may have a flower." And I
took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her
sash. She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfac-
tion, as if her cup of happiness were now full.
I turned my face away to conceal a smile I

38 JANE EYRE.

could not suppress : there was something ludi-
crous as well as painful in the little Parisienne's
earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress.

A soft sound of rising now became audible;
the curtain was swept back from the arch ;
through it appeared the dining-room, with its
lit lustre pouring down light on the silver and
glass of a magnificent dessert-service covering
a long table ; a band of ladies stood in the
opening; they entered, and the curtain fell
behind them.

There were but eight ; yet somehow as they
flocked in, they gave the impression of a much
larger number. Some of them were very tall ;
many were dressed in white; and all had a
sweeping amplitude of array that seemed to
magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the
moon. I rose and curtseyed to them : one or
two bent their heads in return; the others
only stared at me.

They dispersed about the room ; reminding
me, by the lightness and buoyancy of their
movements, of a flock of white plumy birds.
Some of them threw themselves in half-re-
clining positions on the sofas and ottomans;
some bent over the tables and examined the
flowers and books; the rest gathered in a
group round the fire : all talked in a low but

JANE EYRE. 39

clear tone which seemed habitual to them. I
knew their names afterwards, and may as well
mention them now.

First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of
her daughters. She had evidently been a
handsome woman, and was well preserved
still. Of her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was
rather little ; naive, and child-like in face and
manner, and piquant in form : her white
muslin dress and blue sash became her well.
The second, Louisa, was taller and more
elegant in figure ; with a very pretty face, of
that order the French term " minois chiffone :"
both sisters were fair as lilies.

Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage
of about forty ; very erect, very haughty-
looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of
changeful sheen : her dark hair shone glossily
under the shade of an azure plume, and within
the circlet of a band of gems.

Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy ; but, I
thought, more lady-like. She had a slight
figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair. Her
black satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign
lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased me
better than the rainbow radiance of the titled
dame.

But the three most distinguished — partly

40 JANE EYRE.

perhaps, because the tallest figures of the band
— were the Dowager Lady Ingram aud her
daughters, Blanche and Mary. They were
all three of the loftiest stature of woman.
The dowager might be between forty and fifty :
her shape was still fine ; her hair (by candle
light at least) still black ; her teeth, too, were
still apparently perfect. Most people would
have termed her a splendid woman of her age :
and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking ;
but then there was an expression of almost
insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and
countenance. She had Roman features and
a double chin, disappearing into a throat like
a pillar: these features appeared to me not
only inflated and darkened, but even fur-
rowed with pride; and the chin was sustained
by the same principle, in a position of almost
preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a
fierce and a hard eye : it reminded me of Mrs.
Reed's ; she mouthed hdr words in speaking ;
her voice was deep, its inflexions very pompous,
very dogmatical, — very intolerable, in short.
A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of
some gold- wrought Indian fabric, invested her
(I suppose she thought) with a truly imperial
dignity.

Blanche and Mary were of equal stature, —

JANE EYRE. 41

straight and tall as poplars. Mary was too
slim for her height ; but Blanche was moulded
like a Dian. I regarded her, of course, with
special interest. First, I wished to see whether
her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax's
description; secondly, whether it at all re-
sembled the fancy miniature I had painted of
her ; and thirdly — it will out ! — whether it
were such as I should fancy likely to suit
Mr. Rochester's taste.

As far as person went, she answered point
for point, both to my picture and Mrs. Fair-
fax's description. The noble bust, the sloping
shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes
and black ringlets were all there: — but her
face? — Her face was like her mother's; a
youthful, unfurrowed likeness: the same low
brow, the same high features, the same pride.
It was not, however, so saturnine a pride : she
laughed continually ; her laugh was satirical,
and so was the habitual expression of her
arched and haughty lip.

Genius is said to be self-conscious : I cannot
tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but
she was self-conscious — remarkably self-con-
scious indeed. She entered into a discourse
on botany with the gentle Mrs. Dent. It
seems Mrs. Dent had not studied that science :

42 JANE EYRE.

though, as she said, she liked flowers, " espe-
cially wild ones ;" Miss Ingram had, and she
ran over its vocabulary with an air. I pre-
sently perceived she was (what is vernacularly
termed) trailing Mrs. Dent ; that is, playing on
her ignorance : her trail might be clever, but
it was decidedly not good-natured. She played :
her execution was brilliant ; she sang : her voice
was fine; she talked French apart to her
mama ; and she talked it well, with fluency
and with a good accent.

Mary had a milder and more open counte-
nance than Blanche ; softer features too, and a
skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was
dark as a Spaniard) — but Mary was deficient
in life : her face lacked expression, her eye lus-
tre ; she had nothing to say, and having once
taken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in
its niche. The sisters were both attired in
spotless white.

And did I now think Miss Ingram such a
choice as Mr. Rochester would be likely to
make ? I could not tell — I did not know his
taste in female beauty. If he liked the majes-
tic, she was the very type of majesty : then
she was accomplished, sprightly. Most gen-
tlemen would admire her, I thought ; and that
he did admire her, I already seemed to have

JANE EYRE. 43

obtained proof: to remove the last shade of
doubt, it remained but to see them together.

You are not to suppose, reader, that Adele
has all this time been sitting motionless on the
stool at my feet : no ; when the ladies entered,
she rose, advanced to meet them, made a
stately reverence, and said, with gravity, —

" Bon jour, mesdames."

And Miss Ingram had looked down at her
with a mocking air, and exclaimed, " Oh,
what a little puppet !"

Lady Lynn had remarked, " It is Mr.
Rochester's ward, I suppose — the little French
girl he was speaking of."

Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and
given her a kiss. Amy and Louisa Eshton
had cried out simultaneously, —

"What a love of a child!"

And then they had called her to a sofa,
where she now sat, ensconced between them,
chattering alternately in French and broken
English ; absorbing not only the young ladies'
attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady
Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart's
content.

At last coffee is brought in, and the gentle-
men are summoned. I sit in the shade — if any
shade there be in this brilliantly lit apartment ;

44

JANE EYRE.

the window- curtain half hides me. Again the
arch yawns : they come. The collective ap-
pearance of the gentlemen, like that of the
ladies, is very imposing: they are all cos-
tumed in black ; most of them are tall, some
young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very
dashing sparks, indeed ; and Colonel Dent is a
fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate
of the district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite
white, his eyebrows and whiskers still dark,
which gives him something of the appearance
of a " pere noble de theatre." Lord Ingram,
like his sisters, is very tall ; like them, also,
he is handsome; but he shares Mary's apa-
thetic and listless look : he seems to have
more length of limb than vivacity of blood or
vigour of brain.

And where is Mr. Rochester ?

He comes in last : I am not looking at the
arch, yet I see him enter. I try to concen-
trate my attention on these netting-needles, on
the meshes of the purse I am forming — I wish
to think only of the work I have in my hands,
to see only the silver beads and silk threads that
lie in my lap ; whereas, I distinctly behold his
figure, and I inevitably recall the moment
when I last saw it : just after I had rendered
him, what he deemed, an essential service — and

JANE EYRE. 45

he, holding my hand, and looking down on
my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed
a heart full and eager to overflow ; in whose
emotions I had a part. How near had I
approached him at that moment ! What had
occurred since, calculated to change his and
my relative positions ? Yet now, how distant,
how far estranged we were ! So far estranged,
that I did not expect him to come and speak
to me. I did not wonder, when, without look-
ing at me, he took a seat at the other side of
the room, and began conversing with some of
the ladies.

No sooner did I see that his attention was
riveted on them, and that I might gaze without
being observed, than my eyes were drawn
involuntarily to his face: I could not keep
their lids under control : they would rise, and
the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had
an acute pleasure in looking, — a precious, yet
poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely
point of agony : a pleasure like what the thirst-
perishing man might feel who knows the well
to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops
and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.

Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye
of the gazer." My master's colourless, olive
face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty

46 JANE EYRE.

eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm,
grim mouth, — all energy, decision, will, — were
not beautiful, according to rule ; but they were
more than beautiful to me : they were full of
an interest, an influence that quite mastered
me, — that took my feelings from my own
power and fettered them in his. I had not
intended to love him : the reader knows I had
wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the
germs of love there detected ; and now, at the
first renewed view of him, they spontaneously
revived, green and strong ! He made me love
him without looking at me.

I compared him with his guests. What was
the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid
elegance of Lord Ingram, — even the military
distinction ot Colonel Dent contrasted with
his look of native pith and genuine power ? I
had no sympathy in their appearance, their
expression : yet I could imagine that most
observers would call them attractive, hand-
some, imposing ; while they would pronounce
Mr. Rochester at once harsh-featured and
melancholy-looking. I saw them smile, laugh
— it was nothing : the light of the candles had
as much soul in it as their smile ; the tinkle of
the bell as much significance as their laugh.
I saw Mr. Rochester smile : — his stern features

JANE EYRE. 47

softened ; his eye grew both brilliant and
gentle, its ray both searching and sweet. He
was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and
Amy Eshton. I wondered to see them receive
with calm that look which seemed to me so
penetrating : I expected their eyes to fall,
their colour to rise under it; yet I was glad
when I found they were in no sense moved.
" He is not to them what he is to me," I
thought : " he is not of their kind. I believe
he is of mine; — I am sure he is, — I feel
akin to him, — I understand the language of
his countenance and movements : though rank
and wealth sever us widely, I have something
in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves,
that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I
say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do
with him but to receive my salary at his hands ?
Did I forbid myself to think of him in any
other light than as a paymaster ? Blasphemy
against nature! Every good, true, vigorous
feeling I have, gathers impulsively round him.
I know I must conceal my sentiments : I must
smother hope ; I must remember that he can-
not care much for me. For when I say that I
am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his
force to influence, and his spell to attract : I
mean only that I have certain tastes and

48

JANE EYRE.

feelings in common with him. I must, then,
repeat continually that we are for ever sun-
dered : — and yet, while I breathe and think, I
must love him.

Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gen-
tlemen entered, have become lively as larks :
conversation waxes brisk and merry. Colonel
Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics;
their wives listen. The two proud dowagers,
Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate
together. Sir George — whom, by-the-by, I
have forgotten to describe, — a very big, and
very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands
before their sofa, coffee-cup in hand, and
occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederick
Lynn has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram,
and is showing her the engravings of a splendid
volume : she looks, smiles now and then, but
apparently says little. The tall and phleg-
matic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms on
the chair-back of the little and lively Amy
Eshton ; she glances up at him, and chatters
like a wren: she likes him better than she
does Mr. Rochester. Henry Lynn has taken
possession of an ottoman at the feet of Louisa ;
Adele shares it with him : he is trying to
talk French with her, and Louisa laughs at his
blunders. With whom will Blanche Ingram

JANE EYRE. 49

pair? She is standing alone at the table,
bending gracefully over an album. She seems
waiting to be sought ; but she will not wait too
long : she herself selects a mate.

Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons,
stands on the hearth as solitary as she stands
by the table ; she confronts him, taking her
station on the opposite side of the mantel-
piece.

" Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not
fond of children 1 "

" Nor am I."

"Then, what induced you to take charge of
such, a little doll as that ? (pointing to Adele).
Where did you pick her up ?"

" I did not p?ck her up, she was left on my
hands."

" You should have sent her to school."

" I could not afford it : schools are so
dear."

" Why, I suppose you have a governess for
her : I saw a person with her j list now — is she
gone ? Oh, no ! there she is still behind the
window-curtain. You pay her, of course : I
should think it quite as expensive, — more so ; for
you have them both to keep in addition."

I feared — or should I say, hoped ? — the al-
lusion to me would make Mr. Rochester glance

VOL. II. e

50 JANE EYRE.

my way; and I involuntarily shrunk further
into the shade : but he never turned his
eyes.

" I have not considered the subject," said he
indifferently, looking straight before him.

" No — you men never do consider economy
and common sense. You shouldhear mama on
the chapter of governesses : Mary and I have
had, I should think, a dozen at least in our
day ; half of them detestable and the rest ridi-
culous, and all incubi — were they not, mama 1

" Did you speak, my own ?"

The young lady thus claimed as the Dow-
ager's special property, reiterated her question
with an explanation.

" My dearest, don't mention governesses :
the word makes me nervous. I have suffered
a martyrdom from their incompetency and
caprice: I thank Heaven I have now done
with them!"

Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady,
and whispered something in her ear : I sup-
pose from the answer elicited, it was a re-
minder that one of the anathematized race was
present.

" Tant pis ! " said her ladyship, " I hope it
may do her good!" Then, in a lower tone,
but still loud enough for me to hear, " I

JANE EYRE. 51

noticed lier : I am a judge of physiognomy, and
in hers I see all the faults of her class."

"What are they, Madam?" inquired Mr.
Rochester aloud.

" I will tell you in your private ear," replied
she, wagging her turban three times with por-
tentous significancy.

" But my curiosity will be past its appetite :
it craves food now."

" Ask Blanche : she is nearer you than I."

" Oh, don't refer him to me, mama ! I have
just one word to say of the whole tribe : they
are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much
from them: I took care to turn the tables.
What tricks Theodore and I used to play on our
Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame
Jouberts ! Mary was always too sleepy to join
in a plot with spirit. The best fun was with
Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor
sickly thing, lachrymose and low-spirited : not
worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short ; and
Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible : no blow
took effect on her. But poor Madame Jou-
bert ! I see her yet in her raging passions,
when we had driven her to extremities — spilt
our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed
our books up to the ceiling, and played a cha
rivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and

e 2

52 JANE EYRE.

iire-irons. Theodore, do you remember those
merry days?"

"Yaas, to be sure I do," drawled Lord
Ingram : " and the poor old stick used to cry
out 6 Oh you villains childs !' — and then we ser-
monized her on the presumption of attempting
to teach such clever blades as we were, when
she was herself so ignorant."

" We did : and Tedo, you know, I helped
you in prosecuting (or persecuting) your tutor,
whey-faced Mr. Vining — the parson in the pip,
as we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson
took the liberty of falling in love with each
other — at least Tedo and I thought so : we sur-
prised sundry tender glances and sighs which
we interpreted as tokens of * Ila belle passion/
and I promise you the public soon had the
benefit of our discovery : we employed it as a
sort of lever to hoist our dead-weights from
the house. Dear mama there, as soon as she
got an inkling of the business, found out that
it was of an immoral tendency. Did you not,
my lady-mother?"

" Certainly, my best. And I was quite right ;
depend on that : there are a thousand reasons
why liaisons between governesses and tutors
should never be tolerated a moment in any
well-regulated house ; firstly — •

JANE EYRE. 53

" Oh gracious, mama ! Spare us the enu-
meration ! Au reste, we all know them : dan-
ger of had example to innocence of childhood ;
distractions and consequent neglect of duty on
the part of the attached ; mutual alliance and
reliance ; confidence thence resulting — inso-
lence accompanying — mutiny and general
blow-up. Am I right, Baroness Ingram of
Ingram Park?"

" My lily-flower, you are right now as
always."

" Then no more need be said : change the
subject."

Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding
this dictum, joined in with her soft, infantine
tone: "Louisa and I used to quiz our gover-
ness too ; but she was such a good creature, she
would bear anything: nothing put her out.
She was never cross with us; was she, Louisa ?"

" No, never : we might do what we pleased;
ransack her desk and her workbox, and turn
her drawers inside out ; and she was so good-
natured, she would give us anything we asked
for."

" I suppose now," said Miss Ingram, curl-
ing her lip sarcastically, we shall have an
abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses
extant : in order to avert such a visitation, I

54 JANE EYRE.

again move the introduction of a new topic.
Mr. Rochester, do you second my motion ?"

" Madam, I support you on this point as on
every other."

" Then on me be the onus of bringing it
forward. Signior Eduardo are you in voice
to-night?"

" Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will
be."

" Then Signior, I lay on you my sovereign
behest to furbish up your lungs and other
vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my
royal service."

" Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine
a Mary?"

" A fig for Rizzio ! " cried she, tossing her
head with all its curls, as she moved to the
piano. " It is my opinion the fiddler David
must have been an insipid sort of fellow; I
like black Bothwell better : to my mind a
man is nothing without a spice of the devil in
him ; and history may say what it will of
James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he was
just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit-hero whom
I could have consented to gift with my hand."

" Gentlemen, you hear ! Now which of
you most resembles Bothwell?" cried Mr.
Rochester.

JANE EYRE. 55

" I should say the preference lies with you/'
responded Colonel Dent.

" On my honour, I am much obliged to
you," was the reply.

Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself
with proud grace at the piano, spreading out
her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, com-
menced a brilliant prelude ; talking meantime.
She appeared to be on her high horse to-night ;
both her words and her air seemed intended
to excite not only the admiration, but the
amazement of her auditors : she was evidently
bent on striking them as something very dash-
ing and daring indeed.

" Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the
present day ! " exclaimed she, rattling away at
the instrument. " Poor, puny things not fit
to stir a step beyond papa's park-gates : nor to
go even so far without mama's permission and
guardianship ! Creatures so absorbed in care
about their pretty faces and their white hands,
and their small feet ; as if a man had anything
to do with beauty ! As if loveliness were not
the special prerogative of woman — her legiti-
mate appanage and heritage ! I grant an
ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of crea-
tion ; but as to the gentlemen, let them be soli-
citous to possess only strength and valour : let

56 JANE EYRE.

their motto be : — Hunt, shoot and fight : the
rest is not worth a iilip. Such should be my
device, were I a man."

" Whenever I marry," she continued, after
a pause which none interrupted, " I am re-
solved my husband shall not be a rival, but a
foil to me. I will suffer no competitor near the
throne ; I shall exact an undivided homage : his
devotions shall not be shared between me and
the shape he sees in his mirror. Mr. Roches-
ter, now sing, and I will play for you."

" I am all obedience," was the response*

" Here then is a Corsair-song. Know that
I doat on Corsairs ; and for that reason, sing it
* con spirito.' "

" Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would
put spirit into a mug of milk and water."

" Take care, then : if you don't please me, I
will shame you by showing how such things
should be done."

" That is offering a premium on incapacity :
I shall now endeavour to fail."

" Gardez-vous en bien ! If you err wilfully,
I shall devise a proportionate punishment."

" Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she
has it in her power to inflict a chastisement
beyond mortal endurance."

" Ha ! explain ! " commanded the lady.

JANE EYRE. 57

" Pardon me, madam : no need of explana-
tion ; your own fine sense must inform you
that one of your frowns would be a sufficient
substitute for capital punishment."

" Sing ! " said she, and again touching the
piano, she commenced an accompaniment in
spirited style.

" Now is my time to slip away," thought I :
but the tones that then severed the air arrested
me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester
possessed a fine voice : he did — a mellow,
powerful bass, into which he threw his own
feeling, his own force ; finding a way through
the ear to the heart and there waking sen-
sation strangely. I waited till the last deep
and full vibration had expired — till the tide
of talk, checked an instant, had resumed its
flow ; I then quitted my sheltered corner and
made my exit by the side-door, which was
fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage
led into the hall : in crossing it, I perceived
my sandal was loose ; I stopped to tie it, kneel-
ing down for that purpose on the mat at the
foot of the staircase. I heard the dining-room
door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising
hastily, I stood face to face with him : it was
Mr. Rochester.

" How do you do ?" he asked.

58 JANE EYRE.

" I am very well, sir."

" Why did you not come and speak to me
in the room?"

I thought I might have retorted the ques-
tion on him who put it : but I would not take
that freedom. I answered : —

" I did not wish to disturb you, as you
seemed engaged, sir."

"What have you been doing during my
absence ? "

" Nothing particular : teaching Adele as
usual."

" And getting a good deal paler than you
were — as I saw at first sight. What is the
matter?"

" Nothing at all, sir."

" Did you take any cold that night you half
drowned me?"

" Not the least."

" Return to the drawing-room : you are
deserting too early,"

" I am tired, sir."

He looked at me for a minute.

" And a little depressed ;" he said, " What
about? Tell me."

"Nothing — nothing, sir. I am not de-
pressed."

" But I affirm that you are : so much de-

JANE EYRE. 59

pressed that a few more words would bring
tears to your eyes — indeed, they are there now,
shining and swimming ; and a bead has slipped
from the lash and fallen on to the flag. If I
had time, and was not in mortal dread of some
prating prig of a servant passing, I would
know what all this means. Well, to-night I
excuse you ; but understand that so long as my
visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the
drawing-room every evening : it is my wish ;
don't neglect it. ISTow go, and send Sophie for

Adele. Good night, my " He stopped,

bit his lip, and abruptly left me.

60 JANE EYEE.

CHAPTEK III.

Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall;
an d busy days too : how different from the
first three months of stillness, monotony, and
solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All
sad feelings seemed now driven from the
house, all gloomy associations forgotten : there
was life everywhere, movement all day long.
You could not now traverse the gallery, once
so hushed, nor enter the front chamber, once
so tenantless, without encountering a smart
lady's maid or a dandy valet.

The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the ser-
vant's hall, the entrance hall, were equally
alive ; and the saloons were only left void and
still, when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine
of the genial spring weather called their occu-
pants out into the grounds. Even when that
weather was broken, and continuous rain set
in for some days, no damp seemed cast over

JANE EYRE. 61

enjoyment: in-door amusements only became
more lively and varied, in consequence of the
stop put to out-door gaiety.

I wondered what they were going to do the
first evening a change of entertainment was
proposed : they spoke of " playing charades,"
but in my ignorance I did not understand the
term. The servants were called in, the dining-
room tables wheeled away, the lights other-
wise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle
opposite the arch. While Mr. Rochester and
the other gentlemen directed these alterations,
the ladies were running up and down stairs
ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was
summoned to give information respecting the
resources of the house in shawls, dresses,
draperies of any kind ; and certain ward-
robes of the third story were ransacked, and
their contents, in the shape of brocaded and
hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes,
lace lappets, &c, were brought down in arm-
fuls by the Abigails : then a selection was
made, and such things as were chosen were
carried to the boudoir within the drawing;-
room.

Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again sum-
moned the ladies round him, and was selecting
certain of their number to be of his party.

62 JANE EYRE.

" Miss Ingram is mine, of course," said he :
afterwards he named the two Misses Eshton,
and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I hap-
pened to be near him, as I had been fastening
the clasp of Mrs. Dent's bracelet, which had
got loose.

" Will you play ?" he asked. I shook my
head. He did not insist, which I rather feared
he would have done : he allowed me to return
quietly to my usual seat.

He and his aids now withdrew behind the
curtain : the other party, which was headed
by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of
chairs. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton,
observing me, seemed to propose that I should
be asked to join them ; but Lady Ingram
instantly negatived the notion.

" No," I heard her say ; " she looks too
stupid for any game of the sort."

Ere long, a bell tinkled, and the curtain
drew up. Within the arch, the bulky figure
of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester
had likewise chosen, was seen enveloped in
a white sheet : before him, on a table, lay
open a large book ; and at his side stood Amy
Eshton, draped in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and
holding a book in her hand, Somebody, un-
seen, rung the bell merrily ; then Adele (who

JANE EYRE. 63

had insisted on being one of her guardian's
party) bounded forward, scattering round her
the contents of a basket of flowers she carried
on her arm. Then appeared the magnificent
figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long
veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round
her brow : by her side walked Mr. Rochester,
and together they drew near the table. They
knelt ; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton,
dressed also in white, took up their stations
behind them. A ceremony followed, in dumb
show, in which it was easy to recognize the
pantomime of a marriage. At its termination,
Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whis-
pers for two minutes, then the Colonel called
out, —

" Bride ! " Mr. Rochester bowed, and the
curtain fell.

A considerable interval elapsed before it
again rose. Its second rising displayed a
more elaborately prepared scene than the last.
The drawing-room, as I have before observed,
was raised two steps above the dining-room,
and on the top of the upper step, placed a
yard or two back within the room, appeared a
large marble basin, which I recognized as an
ornament of the conservatory — where it usually
stood surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by

64

JANE EYRE.

gold fish — and whence it must have been trans-
ported with some trouble, on account of its
size and weight.

Seated on the carpet, by the side of this
basin, was seen Mr. Rochester, costumed in
shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark
eyes and swarth skin and Paynim features
suited the costume exactly : he looked the very
model of an eastern emir, an agent or a victim
of the bowstring. Presently advanced into
view Miss Ingram. She, too, was attired in
oriental fashion : a crimson scarf tied sash-
like round the waist ; an embroidered hand-
kerchief knotted about her temples ; her beau-
tifully-moulded arms bare, one of them up-
raised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised
gracefully on her head. Both her cast of
form and feature, her complexion and her
general air, suggested the idea of some Israel-
itish princess of the patriarchal days ; and such
was doubtless the character she intended to re-
present.

She approached the basin, and bent over it
as if to fill her pitcher ; she again lifted it to
her head. The personage on the well-brink
now seemed to accost her; to make some re-
quest : — " She hasted, let down her pitcher on
her hand and gave him to drink." From the

JANE EYRE. 65

bosom of his robe, he then produced a casket,
opened it and showed magnificent bracelets
and ear rings ; she acted astonishment and ad-
miration ; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her
feet; incredulity and delight were expressed
by her looks and gestures ; the stranger fast-
ened the bracelets on her arms, and the rings in
her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca : the
camels only were wanting.

The divining party again laid their heads
together: apparently they could not agree
about the word or syllable this scene illustrated.
Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded
" the tableau of the Whole ;" whereupon the
curtain again descended.

On its third rising only a portion of the
drawing-room was disclosed ; the rest being
concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of
dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin
was removed ; in its place stood a deal table
and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible
by a very dim light proceeding from a horn
lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished.

Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with
his clenched hands resting on his knees, and
his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr.
Rochester ; though the begrimed face, the dis-
ordered dress (his coat hanging loose from

VOL. II. F

66 JANE EYRE.

one arm, as if it had been almost torn from
his back in a scuffle), the desperate and scow-
ling countenance, the rough, bristling hair
might well have disguised him. As he moved,
a chain clanked : to his wrists were attached
fetters.

" Bridewell ! " exclaimed Colonel Dent, and
the charade was solved.

A sufficient interval having elapsed for the
performers to resume their ordinary costume,
they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Ro-
chester led in Miss Ingram; she was com-
plimenting him on his acting.

" Do you know," said she, " that, of the
three characters, I liked you in the last best ?
Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier,
what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you
would have made!"

" Is all the soot washed from my face ? " he
asked, turning it towards her.

" Alas ! yes ; the more's the pity ! Nothing
could be more becoming to your complexion
than that ruffian's rouge."

" You would like a hero of the road then ? "

Cl An English hero of the road would be the
next best thing to an Italian bandit ; and that
could only be surpassed by & Levantine
pirate."

JANE EYRE. 67

"Well, whatever I am, remember you are
my wife : we were married an hour since, in
the presence of all these witnesses." She gig-
gled, and her colour rose.

" Now, Dent," continued Mr. Rochester,
" it is your turn." And as the other party
withdrew, he and his band took the vacated
seats. Miss Ingram placed herself at her
leader's right hand ; the other diviners filled
the chairs on each side of him and her. I did
not now watch the actors ; I no longer waited
with interest for the curtain to rise: my at-
tention was absorbed by the spectators; my
eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now
irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs.
What charade Colonel Dent and his party
played, what word they chose, how they ac-
quitted themselves, I no longer remember ;
but I still see the consultation which followed
each scene : I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss
Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him ; I see her
incline her head towards him, till the jetty
curls almost touch his shoulder and wave
against his cheek ; I hear their mutual whis-
perings ; I recall their interchanged glances ;
and something even of the feeling roused by
the spectacle returns in memory at this mo-
ment.

r 2

68 JANE EYRE.

I have told you reader, that I had learnt to
love Mr. Rochester : I could not unlove him
now, merely because I found that he had
ceased to notice me — because I might pass
hours in his presence, and he would never
once turn his eyes in my direction — because I
saw all his attentions appropriated by a great
lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem
of her robes as she passed ; who, if ever her
dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance,
would withdraw it instantly as from an object
too mean to merit observation. I could not
unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon
marry this very lady — because I read daily in
her a proud security in his intentions respect-
ing her — because I witnessed hourly in him a
style of courtship which, if careless and choos-
ing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet,
in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its
very pride, irresistible.

There was nothing to cool or banish love in
these circumstances ; though much to create
despair. Much too, you will think, reader, to
engender jealousy : if a woman, in my position,
could presume to be jealous of a woman in
Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous : or very
rarely; — the nature of the pain I suffered
could not be explained by that word. Miss

JANE EYRE. 69

Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she
was too inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon
the seeming paradox : I mean what I say. She
was very showy, but she was not genuine : she
had a line person, many brilliant attainments ;
but her mind was poor, her heart barren by
nature : nothing bloomed spontaneously on
that soil ; no unforced natural fruit delighted
by its freshness. She was not good ; she was
not original : she used to repeat sounding
phrases from books ; she never offered, nor had,
an opinion of her own. She advocated a
high tone of sentiment ; but she did not know
the sensations of sympathy and pity : tender-
ness and truth were not in her. Too often she
betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a
spiteful antipathy she had conceived against
little Adele : pushing her away with some con-
tumelious epithet if she happened to approach
her ; sometimes ordering her from the room,
and always treating her with coldness and
acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched
these manifestations of character — watched
them closely, keenly, shrewdly. Yes : the future
bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exer-
cised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance:
and it was from this sagacity — this guard-
edness of his — this perfect, clear conscious-

70 JANE EYRE.

ness of his fair one's defects — this obvious
absence of passion in his sentiments towards
her, that my ever-torturing pain arose.

I saw he was going to marry her, for family,
perhaps political reasons ; because her rank
and connexions suited him ; I felt he had not
given her his love, and that her qualifications
were ill adapted to win from him that trea-
sure. This was the point— this was where the
nerve was touched and teazed — this was where
the fever was sustained and fed : she could not
charm him.

If she had managed the victory at once,
and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart
at her feet, I should have covered my face,
turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died
to them. If Miss Ingram had been a good
and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour,
kindness, sense, I should have had one vital
struggle with two tigers — jealousy and de-
spair : then, my heart torn out and devoured,
I should have admired her — acknowledged her
excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my
days : and the more absolute her superiority,
the deeper would have been my admiration —
the more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as
matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's
efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester ; to witness

JANE EYRE. 71

their repeated failure — herself unconscious that
they did fail ; vainly fancying that each shaft
launched, hit the mark, and infatuatedly plum-
ing, herself on success, when her pride and
self-complacency repelled further and further
what she wished to allure — to witness this, was
to be at once under ceaseless excitation and
ruthless restraint.

Because, when she failed, I saw how she
might have succeeded. Arrows that continu-
ally glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast
and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew,
if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in
his proud heart — have called love into his stern
eye, and softness into his sardonic face : or,
better still, without weapons, a silent conquest
might have been won.

• Why can she not influence him more,
when she is privileged to draw so near to him V*
I asked myself. " Surely she cannot truly
like him ; or not like him with true affection !
If she did, she need not coin her smiles so
lavishly ; flash her glances so unremittingly ;
manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so mul-
titudinous. It seems to me, that she might,
by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying
little and looking less, get nigher his heart. 1
have seen in his face a far different expression

72 JANE EYRE.

from that which hardens it now while she is so
vivaciously accosting him ; hut then it came of
itself : it was not elicited by meretricious arts
and calculated manoeuvres ; and one had hut
to accept it — to answer what he asked, without
pretension, to address him when needful with-
out grimace — and it increased, and grew kinder
and more genial, and warmed one like a fos-
tering sunbeam, How will she manage to
please him when they are married ? I do
not think she will manage it : and yet it might
be managed ; and his wife might, I verily be-
lieve, be the very happiest woman the sun
shines on."

I have not yet said anything condemnatory
of Mr. Rochester's project of marrying for
interest and connexions. It surprised me
when I first discovered that such was his in-
tention : I had thought him a man unlikely to
be influenced by motives so common-place in
his choice of a wife ; but the longer I considered
the position, education, &c, of the parties, the
less I felt justified in judging and blaming
either him or Miss Ingram, for acting in con-
formity to ideas and principles instilled into
them, doubtless, from their childhood. All
their class held these principles : I supposed,
then, they had reasons for holding them such

JANE EYRE. 73

as I could not fathom. It seemed to me that,
were I a gentleman like him, I would take to
my bosom only such a wife as I could love ;
but the very obviousness of the advantages to
the husband's own happiness, offered by this
plan, convinced me that there must be argu-
ments against its general adoption of which I
was quite ignorant : otherwise I felt sure all the
world would act as I wished to act.

But in other points, as well as this, I was
growing very lenient to my master : I was for-
getting all his faults, for which I had once
kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been
my endeavour to study all sides of his charac-
ter: to take the bad with the good; and from
the just weighing of both, to form an equitable
judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm
that had repelled, the harshness that had
startled me once, were only like keen condi-
ments in a choice dish: their presence was
pungent, but their absence would be felt as com-
paratively insipid. And as for the vague some-
thing— was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a
designing or a desponding expression? — that
opened upon a careful observer, now and then,
in his eye, and closed again before one could
fathom the strange depth partially disclosed ;
that something which used to make me fear

74 JANE EYRE.

and shrink, as if I had been wandering
amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had sud-
denly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape :
that something, I, at intervals, beheld still ; and
with throbbing heart, but not with palsied
nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed
only to dare — to divine it ; and I thought Miss
Ingram happy, because one day she might look
into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets
and analyze their nature.

Meantime, while I thought only of my
master and his future bride — saw only them,
heard only their discourse, and considered only
their movements of importance — the rest of the
party were occupied with their own separate
interests and pleasures. The ladies Lynn and
Ingram continued to consort in solemn con-
ferences ; where they nodded their two turbans
at each other, and held up their four hands in
confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or
horror, according to the theme on which their
gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets.
Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good-natured
Mrs. Eshton ; and the two sometimes bestowed
a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George
Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton, dis-
cussed politics, or county affairs, or justice
business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy

JANE EYRE.

75

Eshton ; Louisa played and sang to and with
one of the Messrs. Lynn ; and Mary Ingram
listened languidly to the gallant speeches of
the other. Sometimes all, as with one consent,
suspended their by-play to observe and listen
to the principal actors : for, after all, Mr. Ro-
chester, and — because closely connected with
him — Miss Ingram, were the life and soul of
the party. If he was absent from the room
an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal
oyer the spirits of his guests ; and his re-
entrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to
the vivacity of conversation.

The want of his animating influence appeared
to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been
summoned to Millcote on business, and was
not likely to return till late. The afternoon
was wet: a walk the party had proposed to
take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on
a common beyond Hay, was consequently de-
ferred. Some of the gentlemen were gone to
the stables : the younger ones, together with
the younger ladies, were playing billiards in
the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and
Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.
Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by
supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs.
Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into con-

76 JANE EYRE,

versation, had first murmured over some sen-
timental tunes and airs on the piano, and then,
having fetched a novel from the library, had
flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa,
and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction,
the tedious hours of absence. The room and
the house were silent : only now and then the
merriment of the billiard players was heard
from above.

It was verging on dusk, and the clock had
already given warning of the hour to dress for
dinner, when little Adele, who knelt by me in
the drawing-room window seat, exclaimed : —

" Voila, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient ! "

I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards
from her sofa : the others, too, looked up from
their several occupations ; for at the same time
a crunching of wheels, and a splashing tramp
of horse-hoofs became audible on the wet
gravel. A post-chaise was approaching.

" What can possess him to come home in
that style?" said Miss Ingram. "He rode
Mesrour (the black horse) did he not, when
he went out? and Pilot was with him : — what
has he done with the animals?"

As she said this, she approached her tall
person and ample garments so near the window,
that I was obliged to bend back almost to the

JANE EYRE. 77

breaking of my spine : in her eagerness she
did not observe me at first, but when she did,
she curled her lip and moved to another case-
ment. The post-chaise stopped ; the driver
rang the door-bell, and a gentleman alighted,
attired in travelling garb : but it was not Mr.
Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking
man, a stranger.

" Provoking ! " exclaimed Miss Ingram :
" you tiresome monkey ! " (apostrophizing
Adele) " who perched you up in the window
to give false intelligence?" and she cast on
me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.

Some parleying was audible in the hall, and
soon the new comer entered. He bowed to
Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady
present.

" It appears I come at an inopportune time,
madam," said he, " when my friend, Mr.
Rochester, is from home ; but I arrive from a
very long journey, and I think I may presume
so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to
install myself here till he returns."

His manner was polite ; his accent, in speak-
ing, struck me as being somewhat unusual, —
not precisely foreign, but still not altogether
English; his age might be about Mr. Ro-
chester's,— between thirty and forty ; his com-

78 JANE EYKE.

plexion was singularly sallow: otherwise lie
was a fine-looking* man, at first sight espe-
cially. On closer examination, you detected
something in his face that displeased : or rather,
that failed to please. His features were regu-
lar, hut too relaxed: his eye was large and
well cut, but the life looking out of it was a
tame, vacant life — at least so I thought.

The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the
party. It was not till after dinner that I saw
him again : he then seemed quite at his ease.
But I liked his physiognomy even less than
before: it struck me as being, at the same
time, unsettled and inanimate. His eye wan-
dered, and had no meaning in its wandering:
this gave him an odd look, such as I never
remembered to have seen. For a handsome
and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled
me exceedingly : there was no power in that
smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape ; no
firmness in that aquiline nose, and small,
cherry mouth ; there was no thought on the
low, even forehead; no command in that
blank, brown eye.

As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at
him with the light of the girandoles on the
mantelpiece beaming full over him — for he
occupied an arm-chair, drawn close to the fire,

JANE EYRE. 79

and kept shrinking still nearer, as if lie were
cold — I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I
think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast
could not be much greater between a sleek
gander and a fierce falcon : between a meek
sheep and the rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its
guardian.

He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old
friend. A curious friendship theirs must have
been : a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old
adage that " extremes meet."

Two or three of the gentlemen sat near
him, and I caught at times scraps of their
conversation across the room. At first I could
not make much sense of what I heard ; for the
discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram,
who sat nearer to me, confused the frag-
mentary sentences that reached me at inter-
vals. These last were discussing the stranger:
they both called him " a beautiful man."
Louisa said he was " a love of a creature," and
she " adored him;" and Mary instanced his
" pretty little mouth, and nice nose," as her
ideal of the charming.

" And what a sweet-tempered forehead he
has ! " cried Louisa, — " so smooth — none of
those frowning irregularities I dislike so
much : and such a placid eye and smile ! "

80 JANE EYRE.

And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry-
Lynn summoned them to the other side of the
room, to settle some point about the deferred
excursion to Hay Common.

I was now able to concentrate my attention
on the group by the fire, and I presently
gathered that the new comer was called Mr.
Mason : then I learnt that he was but just
arrived in England, and that he came from
some hot country; which was the reason,
doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he
sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in
the house. Presently the words Jamaica,
Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated the West
Indies as his residence; and it was with no
little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he
had there first seen and become acquainted
with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend's
dislike of the burning heats, the hurricanes,
and rainy seasons of that region. I knew Mr.
Rochester had been a traveller : Mrs. Fairfax
had said so ; but I thought the continent of
Europe had bounded his wanderings : till
now I had never heard a hint given of visits
to more distant shores.

I was pondering these things, when an inci-
dent, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke
the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shiver-

JANE EYRE. 81

ing as some one chanced to open the door,
asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which
had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cin-
der still shone hot and red. The footman who
brought the coal, in going out, stopped near
Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to
him in a low voice, of which I heard only
the words, " old woman" — " quite trouble-
some."

" Tell her she shall be put in the stocks, if
she does not take herself off," replied the
magistrate.

"No — stop!" interrupted Colonel Dent.
" Don't send her away, Eshton ; we might
turn the thing to account : better consult the
ladies." And speaking aloud, he continued,
" Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Com-
mon to visit the gipsy camp ; Sam, here, says
that one of the old Mother Bunches is in the
servants' hall at this moment, and insists upon
being brought in before ■ the quality,' to tell
them their fortunes. Would you like to see
her?"

" Surely, Colonel," cried Lady Ingram,
" you would not encourage such a low impos-
tor ? Dismiss her, by all means, at once ! "

" But I cannot persuade her to go away,
my lady," said the footman ; " nor can any of

VOL. II. G

82 JANE EYRE.

the servants : Mrs. Fairfax is with her just
now, entreating her to be gone ; but she has
taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says
nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave
to come in here."

" What does she want?" asked Mrs.
Eshton.

" ' To tell the gentry their fortunes,' she
says, ma'am : and she swears she must and
will do it."

" What is she like?" inquired the Misses
Eshton in a breath.

" A shockingly ugly old creature, Miss ;
almost as black as a crock."

'* Why, she 's a real sorceress ! " cried
Frederick Lynn. " Let us have her in, of
course."

, " To be sure/' rejoined his brother ; " it
would be a thousand pities to throw away
such a chance of fun."

" My dear boys, what are you thinking
about?" exclaimed Lady Lynn.

" I cannot possibly countenance any such
inconsistent proceeding," chimed in the Dow-
ager Ingram.

" Indeed, mama, but you can — and will," pro-
nounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she
turned round on the piano-stool; where till

JANE EYRE. 83

now she had sat silent, apparently examining
sundry sheets of music. " I have a curiosity
to hear my fortune told : therefore, Sam, order
the beldame forwards."

" My darling Blanche ! recollect "

" I do — I recollect all you can suggest ; and
I must have my will — quick, Sam ! "

"Yes — yes — yes!" cried all the juveniles,
both ladies and gentlemen. " Let her come — it
will be excellent sport ! "

The footman still lingered. " She looks
such a rough one," said he.

"Go!" ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the
man went.

Excitement instantly seized the whole party :
a running fire of raillery and jests was pro-
ceeding when Sam returned.

" She won't come now," said he. " She
says it's not her mission to appear before the
'vulgar herd' (them's her words). I must
show her into a room by herself, and then
those who wish to consult her must go to her
one by one."

" You see now, my queenly Blanche," began
Lady Ingram, " she encroaches. Be advised,
my angel-girl — and "

" Show her into the library, of course,"
cut in the " angel-girl." " It is not my mission

g 2

84 JANE EYRE.

to listen to her before the vulgar herd either :
I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a
fire in the library V

" Yes, ma'am — but she looks such a tinkler."

" Cease that chatter, blockhead ! and do my
bidding."

Again Sam vanished ; and mystery, anima-
tion, expectation rose to full flow once more.

" She 's ready now," said the footman as he
re-appeared. " She wishes to know who will
be her first visitor."

" I think I had better just look in upon her
before any of the ladies go," said Colonel Dent.
" Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming."

Sam went and returned.

" She says, sir, that she '11 have no gentle-
men ; they need not trouble themselves to
come near her : nor," he added, with difficulty
suppressing a titter, " any ladies either, except
the young and single."

" By Jove, she has taste ! " exclaimed Henry
Lynn.

Miss Ingram rose solemnly : "I go first,"
she said, in a tone which might have befitted
the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach
in the van of his men.

" Oh, my best ! oh, my dearest ! pause —
reflect ! " was her mama's cry ; but she swept

JANE EYRE. 85

past her in stately silence, passed through the
door which Colonel Dent held open, and we
heard her enter the library.

A comparative silence ensued. Lady In-
gram thought it " le cas " to wring her hands ;
which she did accordingly. Miss Mary de-
clared she felt, for her part, she never dared
venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered un-
der their breath, and looked a little frightened.

The minutes passed very slowly : fifteen were
counted before the library-door again opened.
Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch.

Would she laugh ? Would she take it as
a joke ? — All eyes met her with a glance of
eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one
of rebuff and coldness: she looked neither
flurried nor merry ; she walked stiffly to her
seat, and took it in silence.

"Well, Blanche?" said Lord Ingram.

"What did she say, sister?" asked Mary.

" What did you think ? How do you feel ?
Is she a real fortune-teller?" demanded the
Misses Eshton.

"Now, now, good people," returned Miss
Ingram, " don't press upon me. Really your
organs of wonder and credulity are easily ex-
cited : you seem by the importance you all —
my good mama included — ascribe to this mat-

86 JANE EYRE.

ter — absolutely to believe we have a genuine
witch in the house, who is in close alliance
with the old gentleman. I have seen a gipsy-
vagabond ; she has practised in hackneyed
fashion the science of palmistry, and told me
what such people usually tell. My whim is
gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do
well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow
morning, as he threatened."

Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her
chair, and so declined further conversation.
I watched her for nearly half an hour : during
all that time she never turned a page, and her
face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied,
and more sourly expressive of disappointment.
She had obviously not heard anything to her
advantage; and it seemed to me, from her pro-
longed fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she
herself, notwithstanding her professed indif-
ference, attached undue importance to what-
ever revelations had been made her.

Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa
Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and
yet they all wished to go. A negociation was
opened through the medium of the ambas-
sador, Sam; and after much pacing to and
fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must
have ached with the exercise, permission was

JANE EYRE. 87

at last, witli great difficulty, extorted from the
rigorous Sybil, for the three to wait upon her
in a body.

Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's
had been : we heard hysterical giggling and
little shrieks proceeding from the library ; and
at the end of about twenty minutes they burst
the door open, and came running across the
hall, as if they were half-scared out of their
wits.

" I'm sure she is something not right ! "
they cried, one and all. " She told us such
things! She knows all about us!" and they
sank breathless into the various seats the
gentlemen hastened to bring them.

Pressed for further explanation, they de-
clared she had told them of things they had
said and done when they were mere children ;
described books and ornaments they had in
their boudoirs at home : keepsakes that dif-
ferent relations had presented to them. They
affirmed that she had even divined their
thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of
each the name of the person she liked best in
the world, and informed them of what they
most wished for.

Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest

88 JANE EYRE.

petitions to be farther enlightened on these
two last-named points ; but they got only
blushes, ejaculations, tremors and titters, in
return for their importunity. The matrons,
meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded
fans ; and again and again reiterated the ex-
pression of their concern that their warning
had not been taken in time; and the elder
gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged
their services on the agitated fair ones.

In the midst of the tumult, and while my
eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene
before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow :
I turned, and saw Sam.

" If you please, Miss, the gipsy declares
that there is another young single lady in the
room who has not been to her yet, and she
swears she will not go till she has seen all. I
thought it must be you : there is no one else
for it. What shall I tell her?"

" Oh, I will go by all means," I answered ;
and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity
to gratify my much excited curiosity. I slip-
ped out of the room, unobserved by any eye —
for the company were gathered in one mass
about the trembling trio just returned —and I
closed the door quietly behind me.

JANE EYRE. 89

"If you like, Miss," said Sam, " I'll wait in
the hall for you ; and if she frightens you, just
call and I'll come in."

" No, Sam, return to the kitchen : I am not
in the least afraid." Nor was I ; but I was a
good deal interested and excited.

90 JANE EYRE.

CHAPTER IV.

The Library looked tranquil enough as I
entered it, and the Sybil — if Sybil she were,
was seated snugly enough in an easy chair
at the chimney-corner. She had on a red
cloak and a black bonnet ; or rather, a broad-
brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped
handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished
candle stood on the table ; she was bending
over the fire, and seemed reading in a little
black book, like a prayer-book, by the light
of the blaze : she muttered the words to her-
self, as most old women do, while she read ;
she did not desist immediately on my entrance :
it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.

I stood on the rug and warmed my hands,
which were rather cold with sitting at a dis-
tance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now
as composed as ever I did in my life : there
was nothing indeed in the gipsy's appearance to

JANE EYRE.

91

trouble one's calm. She shut her book and
slowly looked up ; her hat-brinci partially-
shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised
it, that it was a strange one. It looked all
brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from
beneath a white band which passed under her
chin, and came half over her cheeks or rather
jaws ; her eye confronted me at once, with a
bold and direct gaze.

"Well, and you want your fortune told?"
she said in a voice as decided as her glance,
as harsh as her features.

" I don't care about it, mother ; you may
please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I
have no faith."

" It 's like your impudence to say so : I ex-
pected it of you ; I heard it in your step as
you crossed the threshold."

" Did you ? You 've a quick ear."

" I have ; and a quick eye, and a quick
brain."

" You need them all in your trade."

" I do ; especially when I 've customers like
you to deal with. Why don't you tremble?"

" I 'm not cold."

" Why don't you turn pale ?"

" I am not sick."

" Why don't you consult my art ?"

92 JANE EYRE

" I 'm not silly."

The old crone " nichered" a laugh under her
bonnet and bandage : she then drew out a
short black pipe, and lighting it, began to
smoke. Having indulged awhile in this seda-
tive, she raised her bent body, took the pipe
from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the
fire, said very deliberately : — -

" You are cold ; you are sick ; and you are
silly."

" Prove it," I rejoined.

" I will ; in few words. You are cold ; be-
cause you are alone : no contact strikes the fire
from you that is in you. You are sick; be-
cause the best of feelings, the highest and the
sweetest given to man, keeps far away from
you. You are silly; because, suffer as you may,
you will not beckon it to approach ; nor will
you stir one step to meet it where it waits
you."

She again put her short, black pipe to her
lips and renewed her smoking with vigour.

" You might say all that to almost any one
who, you knew, lived as a solitary dependent
in a great house."

" I might say it to almost any one ; but would
it be true of almost any one ? "

" In my circumstances."

JANE EYRE. 93

" Yes ; just so, in your circumstances : but
find me another precisely placed as you are."

" It would be easy to find you thousands."

" You could scarcely find me one. If you
knew it, you are peculiarly situated : very near
happiness ; yes ; within reach of it. The ma-
terials are all prepared ; there only wants a
movement to combine them. Chance laid them
omewhat apart : let them be once approached
and bliss results."

" I don't understand enigmas. I never could
guess a riddle in my life.'*

" If you wish me to speak more plainly,
show me your palm."

" And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?"

"To be sure."

I gave her a shilling : she put it into an old
stocking-foot which she took out of her pocket,
and having tied it round and returned it, she
told me to hold out my hand. I did. She
approached her face to the palm, and pored
over it without touching it.

" It is too fine ;" said she. " I can make
nothing of such a hand as that ; almost with-
out lines : besides, what is in a palm ? Destiny
is not written there."
* I believe you," said I.

" No ;" she continued, " it is in the face : on

94 JANE EYRE.

the forehead, about the eyes, in the eyes them-
selves, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and
lift up your head."

" Ah ! Now you are coming to reality," I
said as I obeyed her.

" I shall begin to put some faith in you
presently."

I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred
the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from
the disturbed coal : the glare, however, as she
sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow :
mine, it illumined.

" I wonder with what feelings you came to
me to-night," she said, when she had examined
me awhile. "I wonder what thoughts are
busy in your heart during all the hours you
sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting
before you like shapes in a magic-lantern;
just as little sympathetic communion passing
between you and them, as if they were really
mere shadows of human forms and not the
actual substance."

" I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes ; but
seldom sad."

" Then you have some secret hope to buoy
you up and please you with whispers of the
future?"

" iNrot I. The utmost I hope is, to save

JANE EYRE. 95

money enough out of my earnings to set up
a school some day in a little house rented by
myself."

" A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist
on : and sitting in that window-seat (you see
I know your habits) — ; *

" You have learned them from the servants."

" Ah ! You think yourself sharp. Well- —
perhaps I have : to speak truth, I have an ac-
quaintance with one of them — Mrs. Poole — "

I started to my feet when I heard the name.

"You have — have you?" thought I; " there
is diablerie in the business after all, then!"

" Don't be alarmed," continued the strange
being; "she's a safe hand, is Mrs. Poole:
close and quiet: any one may repose confi-
dence in her. But, as I was saying : sitting in
that window-seat, do you think of nothing but
your future school ? Have you no present in-
terest in any of the company who occupy the
sofas and chairs before you ? Is there not one
face you study? One figure whose move-
ments you follow with, at least, curiosity ? "

" I like to observe all the faces, and all the
figures."

" But do you never single one from the
rest — or it may be, two?"

" I do frequently ; when the gestures or

96 JANE EYRE.

looks of a pair seem telling a tale : it amuses
me to watch them."

" What tale do you like best to hear?"
"Oh, I have not much choice ! They
generally run on the same theme — courtship ;
and promise to end in the same catastrophe —
marriage."

" And do you like that monotonous theme?"
" Positively I don't care about it : it is
nothing to me."

" Nothing to you ? When a lady, young and
full of life and health, charming with beauty
and endowed with the gifts of rank and for-
tune, sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentle-
man you — "
"I what?"

" You know — and, perhaps, think well of."
" I don't know the gentlemen here. I have
scarcely interchanged a syllable with one of
them ; and as to thinking well of them, I con-
sider some respectable and stately, and middle-
aged, and others young, dashing, handsome
and lively : but certainly they are all at liberty
to be the recipients of whose smiles they please,
without my feeling disposed to consider the
transaction of any moment to me."

" You don't know the gentlemen here ?
You have not exchanged a syllable with one

JANE EYRE. 97

of them ? Will you say that of the master of
the house?"

" He is not at home."

" A profound remark ! A most ingenious
quibble ! He went to Millcote this morning,
and will be back here to-night, or to-morrow :
does that circumstance exclude him from the
list of your acquaintance — blot him, as it were,
out of existence?"

" No : but I can scarcely see what Mr. Ro-
chester has to do with the theme you had in-
troduced."

" I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes
of gentlemen ; and of late so many smiles have
been shed into Mr. Rochester's eyes that they
overflow like two cups filled above the brim :
have you never remarked that ?"

" Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the
society of his guests."

" No question about his right : but have you
never observed that, of all the tales told here
about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been
favoured with the most lively and the most
continuous?"

" The eagerness of a listener quickens the
tongue of a narrator." I said this rather to
myself than to the gipsy; whose strange talk,

VOL. II. H

98 JANE EYRE.

voice, manner had 'by this time wrapped me in
a kind of dream. One unexpected sentence
came from her lips after another, till I got
involved in a web of mystification ; and won-
dered what unseen spirit had been sitting for
weeks by my heart, watching its workings,
and taking record of every pulse.

" Eagerness of a listener ! " repeated she :
" yes ; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his
ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took
such delight in their task of communicating ;
and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive,
and looked so grateful for the pastime given
him : you have noticed this?"

" Grateful ! I cannot remember detecting
gratitude in his face."

" Detecting ! You have analyzed, then.
And what did you detect, if not gratitude ?"

I said nothing.

" You have seen love : have you not ? — and,
looking forward, you have seen him married,
and beheld his bride happy ? "

" Humph ! Not exactly. Your witch's
skill is rather at fault sometimes."

" What the devil have you seen, then V

" Never mind : I came here to inquire, not
to confess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester is
to be married?"

JANE EYRE. 99

" Yes ; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram."

" Shortly ?"

" Appearances would warrant that conclu-
sion ; and, no doubt (though, with an audacity
that wants chastising out of you, you seem to
question it), they will be a superlatively happy
pair. He must love such a handsome, noble,
witty, accomplished lady ; and probably she
loves him : or, if not his person, at least his
purse. I know she considers the Rochester
estate eligible to the last degree ; though (God
pardon me !) I told her something on that
point about an hour ago, which made her look
wondrous grave : the corners of her mouth fell
half an inch. I would advise her black a-viced
suitor to look out : if another comes, with a
longer or clearer rent-roll, — he 's dished "

" But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr.
Rochester's fortune : I came to hear my own •
and you have told me nothing of it."

" Your fortune is yet doubtful : when I
examined your face, one trait contradicted
another. Chance has meted you a measure of
happiness : that I know. I knew it before I
came here this evening. She has laid it care-
fully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It
depends on yourself to stretch out your hand,
and take it up : but whether you will do so, is

H 2

100 JANE EYRE.

the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug."

" Don't keep me long ; the fire scorches
me."

I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but
-only gazed, leaning back in her chair. She
began muttering :

" The flame flickers in the eye ; the eye
shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feel-
ing ; it smiles at my jargon : it is susceptible ;
impression follows impression through its clear
sphere ; when it ceases to smile, it is sad ; an
unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid : that
signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness.
It turns from me ; it will not suffer farther
scrutiny ; it seems to deny, by a mocking
glance, the truth of the discoveries I have
already made, — to disown the charge both of
sensibility and chagrin : its pride and reserve
only confirm me in my opinion. The eye is
favourable.

" As to the mouth, it delights at times in
laughter : it is disposed to impart all that the
brain conceives; though I dare say it would
be silent on much the heart experiences.
Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to
be compressed in the eternal silence of soli
tude : it is a mouth which should speak much
and smile often, and have human affection

JANE EYRE. 101

for its interlocutor. That feature, too, is pro-
pitious.

" I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in
the brow ; and that brow professes to say, — -
' I can live alone, if self-respect and circum-
stances require me so to do. I need not sell
my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward trea-
sure, born with me, which can keep me alive if
all extraneous delights should be withheld;
or offered only at a price I cannot afford to
give.' The forehead declares, ' Reason sits
firm and holds the reins, and she will not let
the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild
chasms. The passions may rage furiously,
like true heathens, as they are ; and the desires
may imagine all sorts of vain things : but judg-
ment shall still have the last word in every
argument, and the casting vote in every deci-
sion. Strong wind, earthquake, shock, and
fire may pass by : I shall follow the guiding
but of that still small voice which interprets
the dictates of conscience.'

" Well said, forehead ; your declaration
shall be respected. I have formed my plans
— right plans I deem them — and in them I
have attended to the claims of conscience, the
counsels of reason. I know how soon youth
would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of

102 JANE EYRE.

bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one
flavour of remorse were detected; and I do
not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution — such
is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight —
to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood
—no, nor of brine : my harvest must be in
smiles, in endearments, in sweet.' That will do.
I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium.
I should wish now to protract this moment ad
hifinitum ; but I dare not. So far I have
governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as
I inwardly swore I would act ; but farther
might try me beyond my strength. Rise,
Miss Eyre : leave me ; ' the play is played
out/"

Where was I ? Did I wake or sleep 1 Had
I been dreaming ? Did I dream still ? The
old woman's voice had changed : her accent,
her gesture, and all, were familiar to me as my
own face in the glass — as the speech of my own
tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked ;
I stirred the fire, and I looked again : but she
drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about
her face, and again beckoned me to depart.
The flame illuminated her hand stretched out :
roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I
at once noticed that hand. It was no more
the withered limb of eld than my own : it was

JANE EYRE. 103

a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers,
symmetrically turned ; a broad ring flashed
on the little finger, and stooping forward, I
looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a
hundred times before. Again I looked at the
face ; which was no longer turned from me
— on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the
bandage displaced, the head advanced.

"Well, Jane, do you know me?" asked
the familiar voice.

" Only take off the red cloak, sir, and
then "

" But the string is in a knot — help me."

" Break it, sir."

" There, then— e Off, ye lendings ! ' " And
Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise.

" Now, sir, what a strange idea ! "

" But well carried out, eh? Don't you
think so ? "

" With theladies you musthave managed well."

" But not with you ? "

" You did not act the character of a gipsy
with me."

" What character did I act? My own ?"

" No ; some unaccountable one. In short,
I believe you have been trying to draw me
out — or in : you have been talking nonsense to
make me talk nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir."

104 JANE EYRE.

" Do you forgive me, Jane?"

" I cannot tell till I have thought it all
over. If, on reflection, I find I have fallen
into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive
you : but it was not right."

" Oh ! you have been very correct — very
Careful, very sensible."

I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I
had. It was a comfort: but, indeed, I had
been on my guard almost from the beginning
of the interview. Something of masquerade I
suspected. I knew gipsies and fortune-tellers
did not express themselves as this seeming old
woman had expressed herself: besides, I had
noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to conceal
her features. But my mind had been running
on Grace Poole — that living enigma, that mys-
tery of mysteries, as I considered her : I had
never thought of Mr Rochester.

"Well," said he, "what are you musing
about ? What does that grave smile [sig-
nifyr

" Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I
have your permission to retire now, I suppose?"

" No : stay a moment ; and tell me what
the people in the drawing-room yonder are
doing."

" Discussing the gipsy, I daresay."

JANE EYRE. lOo

" Sit down, sit down ! — Let me hear what
they said about me."

" I had better not stay long, sir : it must be
near eleven o'clock. Oh ! are you aware, Mr.
Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here
since you left this morning?"

" A stranger ! — no : who can it be ? I
expected no one : is he gone?"

" No : he said he had known you long, and
that he could take the liberty of installing
himself here till you returned."

" The devil he did ! Did he give his
name?"

lc His name is Mason, sir ; and he comes
from the West Indies : from Spanish Town, in
Jamaica, I think."

Mr. Rochester was standing near me : he
had taken my hand, as if to lead me to a
chair. As I spoke, he gave my wrist a con-
vulsive grip ; the smile on his lips froze : ap-
parently a spasm caught his breath,

"Mason! — the West Indies!" he said, in
the tone one might fancy a speaking automaton
to enounce its single words ; " Mason ! — the
West Indies!" he reiterated; and he went
over the syllables three times, growing, in the
intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes : he
hardly seemed to know what he was doing.

106

JANE EYRE.

" Do you feel ill, sir?" I inquired.

" Jane, I 've got a blow ; — I 've got a blow,
Jane !" he staggered.

" Oh ! — lean on me, sir."

" Jane, you offered me your shoulder once
before ; let me have it now."

" Yes, sir, yes ; and my arm."

He sat down, and made me sit beside him.
Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed
it ; gazing on me, at the same time, with the
most troubled and dreary look.

" My little friend !" said he, " I wish I were
in a quiet island with only you ; and trouble,
and danger, and hideous recollections removed
from me,"

" Can I help you, sir? — I'd give my life to
serve you."

" Jane, if aid is wanted, I '11 seek it at your
hands : I promise you that."

" Thank you, sir : tell me what to do, — I '11
try, at least, to do it."

" Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from,
the dining-room : they will be at supper there ;
and tell me if Mason is with them, and what
he is doing."

I went. I found all the party in the dining-
room at supper, as Mr. Rochester had said:
they were not seated at table, — the supper was

JANE EYRE. 107

arranged on the sideboard ; each had taken
what he chose, and they stood about here and
there in groups, their plates and glasses in
their hands. Every one seemed in high glee ;
laughter and conversation were general and
animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire,
talking to Colonel and Mrs. Dent, and ap-
peared as merry as any of them. I filled a
wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me
frowningly as I did so: she thought I was
taking a liberty, I dare say), and I returned
to the library.

Mr. Rochester's extreme pallor had disap-
peared, and he looked once more firm and
stern. He took the glass from my hand.

" Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!"
he said : he swallowed the contents and re-
turned it to me. " What are they doing,
Jane?"

"Laughing and talking, sir."

" They don't look grave and mysterious, as
if they had heard something strange?"

" Not at all : — they are full of jests and
gaiety."

"And Mason?"

" He was laughing too."

" If all these people came in a body and
spit at me, what would you do, Jane?"

108 JANE EYRE.

" Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could."

He half smiled. " But if I were to go to
them, and they only looked at me coldly, and
whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and
then dropt off and left me one by one, what
then? Would you go with them IV

" I rather think not, sir : I should have more
pleasure in staying with you."

" To comfort me."

" Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I
could."

" And if they laid you under a ban for ad-
hering to me?"

" I, probably, should know nothing about
their ban; and if I did, I should care nothing
about it."

" Then, you could dare censure for my
sake ? "

" I could dare it for the sake of any friend
who deserved my adherence ; as you, I am
sure do."

" Go back now into the room ; step quietly
up to Mason, and whisper in his ear that Mr.
Rochester is come and wishes to see him :
show him in here, and then leave me."

" Yes, sir."

I did his behest. The company all stared
at me as I passed straight among them. I

JANE EYRE. 109

sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and
preceded him from the room : I ushered him
into the library, and then I went up stairs.

At a late hour, after I had been in bed some
time, I heard the visitors repair to their cham-
bers : I distinguished Mr. Rochester's voice,
and heard him say, " This way, Mason ; this
is your room."

He spoke cheerfully : the gay tones set my
heart at ease. I was soon asleep.

110 JANE EYRE.

CHAPTER V.

I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which
I usually did ; and also to let down my
window-blind. The consequence was, that
when the moon, which was full and bright,
(for the night was fine) came in her course to
that space in the sky opposite my casement,
and looked in at me through the unveiled
panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking
in the dead of night, I opeued my eyes on her
disk — silver-white and crystal-clear. It was
beautiful, but too solemn : I half rose, and
stretched my arm to draw the curtain.

Good God ! What a cry !

The night — its silence — its rest, was rent in
twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound
that ran from end to end of Thornfi eld-Hall.

My pulse stopped: my heart stood still;
my stretched arm was paralyzed. The cry
died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever

JANE EYRE. Ill

being uttered that fearful shriek could not
soon repeat it : not the widest-winged condor
on the Andes could, twice in succession, send
out such a yell from the cloud shrouding his
eyry. The thing delivering such utterance must
rest ere it could repeat the effort.

It came out of the third story ; for it passed
overhead . And overhead — yes, in the room j ust
above my chamber-ceiling — I now heard a
struggle : a deadly one it seemed from the
noise ; and a half- smothered voice shouted : —

" Help ! help ! help ;" three times rapidly.

"Will no one come?" it cried; and then
while the staggering and stamping went on
wildly, I distinguished through plank and
plaster : —

" Rochester ! Rochester ! For God's sake.
Come!"

A chamber-door opened : some one ran, or
rushed, along the gallery. Another step stamp-
ed on the flooring above, and something fell ;
and there was silence.

I had put on some clothes, though horror
shook all my limbs : I issued from my apart-
ment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejacu-
lations, terrified murmurs sounded in every
room ; door after door unclosed ; one looked
out and another looked out ; the gallery filled.

112 JANE EYRE.

Gentlemen and ladies alike had quitted their
beds; and "Oh! What is it?"— "Who is
hurt?"— "What has happened?"— " Fetch a
light !"—" Is it fire ?"— " Are there robbers ? "
— "Where shall we run?" was demanded
confusedly on all hands. But for the moon-
light they would have been in complete dark-
ness. They ran to and fro ; they crowded
together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the
confusion was inextricable.

" Where the devil is Rochester ? " cried
Colonel Dent. " I cannot find him in his
bed."

" Here! here!" was shouted in return. " Be
composed, all of you : I'm coming."

And the door at the end of the gallery
opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a
candle : he had just descended from the upper
story. One of the ladies ran to him directly ;
she seized his arm : it was Miss Ingram.

" What awful event has taken place ?" said
she. " Speak ! let us know the worst at
once !"

" But don't pull me down or strangle me,"
he replied : for the Misses Eshton were cling-
ing about him now ; and the two dowagers, in
vast white wrappers, were bearing down on
him like ships in full sail.

JANE EYRE. 113

" All 's right ! — all 's right !" he cried. " It's
a mere rehearsal of much ado about nothing.
Ladies, keep off; or I shall wax dangerous."

And dangerous he looked : his black eyes
darted sparks. Calming himself by an effort,
he added :

" A servant has had the nightmare ; that is
all. She *s an excitable, nervous person : she
construed her dream into an apparition, or
something of that sort, no doubt; and has
taken a fit with fright. Now, then, I must
see you all back into your rooms ; for, till the
house is settled, she cannot be looked after.
Gentlemen, have the goodness to set the ladies
the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you
will not fail in evincing superiority to idle
terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your
nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mes-
dames" (to the dowagers) " you will take cold
to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill
gallery any longer."

And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and
commanding, he contrived to get them all
once more enclosed in their separate dormi-
tories. I did not wait to be ordered back to
mine ; but retreated unnoticed : as unnoticed I
had left it.

Not, however, to go to bed : on the contrary,

VOL. II. i

114 JANE EYRE.

I began and dressed myself carefully. The
sounds I had heard after the scream, and the
words that had been uttered, had probably
been heard only by me ; for they had pro-
ceeded from the room above mine : but they
assured me that it was not a servant's dream
which had thus struck horror through the
house ; and that the explanation Mr. Rochester
had given was merely an invention framed to
pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready
for emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long
time by the window, looking out over the
silent grounds and silvered fields, and waiting
for I knew not what. It seemed to me that
some event must follow the strange cry,
struggle, and call.

No : stillness returned : each murmur and
movement ceased gradually, and in about an
hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as
a desert. It seemed that sleep and night had
resumed their empire. Meantime the moon
declined : she was about to set. Not liking
to sit in the cold and darkness, I thought I
would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was.
I left the window, and moved with little noise
across the carpet ; as I stooped to take off my
shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the
door.

JANE EYRE, 115

" Am I wanted ?" I asked.

" Are you up ?" asked the voice I expected
to hear, viz., my master's.

" Yes, sir."

" And dressed ?"

" Yes."

" Come out, then, quietly."

I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gal-
lery, holding a light.

" I want you," he said : " come this way :
take your time, and make no noise."

My slippers were thin : I could walk the
matted floor as softly as a cat. He glided up
the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in
the dark, low corridor of the fateful third
story : I had followed and stood at his side.

" Have you a sponge in your room ? " he
asked in a whisper.

" Yes, sir."

" Have you any salts — volatile salts?"

" Yes."

" Go back and fetch both."

I returned, sought the sponge on the wash-
stand, the salts in my drawer, and once more
retraced my steps. He still waited ; he held
a key in his hand : approaching one of the
small, black doors, he put it in the lock ; he
paused and addressed me again.

i 2

116 JANE EYRE.

" You don't turn sick at the sight of blood?"

"I think I shall not: I have never been
tried yet."

I felt a thrill while I answered him ; but no
coldness, and no faintness.

" Just give me your hand ;" he said, " it will
not do to risk a fainting fit."

I put my fingers into his. " Warm and
steady," was his remark: he turned the key
and opened the door.

I saw a room I remembered to have seen
before : the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over
the house : it was hung with tapestry ; but the
tapestry was now looped up in one part, and
there was a door apparent, which had then
been concealed. This door was open ; a light
shone out of the room within : I heard thence
a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog
quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his
candle, said to me, " wait a minute," and he
went forward to the inner apartment. A
shout of laughter greeted his entrance ; noisy
at first, and terminating in Grace Poole's own
goblin ha! ha! She then was there. He
made some sort of arrangement, without
speaking; though I heard a low voice ad-
dress him: he came out and closed the door
behind him.

JANE EYRE. 117

"Here, Jane!" he said; and I walked
round to the other side of a large bed, which
with its drawn curtains concealed a consider-
able portion of the chamber. An easy-chair
was near the bed-head : a man sat in it,
dressed with the exception of his coat ; he was
still; his head leant back; his eyes were
closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over
him ; I recognized in his pale and seemingly
lifeless face — the stranger, Mason : I saw too
that his linen on one side, and one arm, was
almost soaked in blood.

" Hold the candle," said Mr. Rochester,
and I took it; he fetched a basin of water
from the washstand : " hold that," said he. I
obeyed. He took the sponge, dipped it in
and moistened the corpse-like face : he asked
for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to
the nostrils. Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his
eyes ; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the
shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and
shoulder were bandaged : he sponged away
blood, trickling fast down.

" Is there immediate danger ?" murmured
Mr. Mason.

" Pooh ! No — a mere scratch. Don't be
so overcome, man : bear up ! I '11 fetch a sur-
geon for you now, myself: you '11 be able to

118 JANE EYRE.

be removed by morning, I hope. Jane—-" he
continued.

"Sir?"

" I shall have to leave you in this room with
this gentleman, for an hour, or perhaps two
hours; you will sponge the blood as I do
when it returns : if he feels faint, you will put
the glass of water on that stand, to his lips,
and your salts to his nose. You will not speak
to him on any pretext — and — Richard — it will
be at the peril of your life you speak to her:
open your lips — agitate yourself — and I '11 not
answer for the consequences."

Again the poor man groaned: he looked
as if he dared not move: fear, either of
death or of something else, appeared almost to
paralyze him. Mr. Rochester put the now
bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded
to use it as he had done. He watched me a
second, then saying, "remember! — No con-
versation," he left the room. I experienced a
strange feeling as the key grated in the lock,
and the sound of his retreating step ceased to
be heard.

Here then I was in the third story, fastened
into one of its mystic cells ; night around me ;
a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and
hands ; a murderess hardly separated from me

JANE EYRE. 119

by a single door : yes — that was appalling —
the rest I could bear ; but I shuddered at the
thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.

I must keep to my post, however. I must
watch this ghastly countenance — these blue,
still lips forbidden to unclose — these eyes now
shut, now opening, now wandering through
the room, now fixing on me, and ever glazed
with the dulness of horror. I must dip my
hand again and again in the basin of blood
and water, and wipe away the trickling gore.
I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle
wane on my employment ; the shadows darken
on the wrought, antique tapestry round me,
and grow black under the hangings of the
vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the
doors of a great cabinet opposite — whose front,
divided into twelve panels, bore in grim design,
the heads of the twelve apostles, each inclosed
in its separate panel as in a frame; while above
them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a
dying Christ.

According as the shifting obscurity and
flickering gleam hovered here or glanced
there, it was now the bearded physician,
Luke, that bent his brow ; now St. John's long
hair that waved ; and anon the devilish face of
Judas, that grew out of the panel and seemed

120 JANE EYRE.

gathering life and threatening a revelation of
the arch-traitor — of Satan himself — in his sub-
ordinate's form.

Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as
watch : to listen for the movements of the wild
beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But
since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spell-
bound : all the night I heard but three sounds
at three long intervals, — a step, creak, a mo-
mentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise,
and a deep, human groan.

Then my own thoughts worried me. What
crime was this, that lived incarnate in this
sequestered mansion, and could neither be ex-
pelled nor subdued by the owner ? — What
mystery, that broke out, now in fire and now in
blood, at the deadest hours of night? — What
creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary
woman's face and shape, uttered the voice,
now of a mocking demon, and anon of a car-
rion-seeking bird of prey ?

And this man I bent over — this common-
place, quiet stranger — how had he become
involved in the web of horror? and why had
the Fury flown at him ? What made him seek
this quarter of the house at an untimely season,
when he should have been asleep in bed ? I
had heard Mr. Rochester assign him an apart-

JANE EYRE. 121

ment below — what brought him here ? And
why, now, was he so tame under the violence
or treachery done him ? "Why did he so quietly
submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester en-
forced ? Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this
concealment? His guest had been outraged,
his own life on a former occasion had been
hideously plotted against ; and both attempts
he smothered in seeresy and sunk in ob-
livion ! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was sub-
missive to Mr. Rochester ; that the impetuous
will of the latter held complete sway over the
inertness of the former : the few words which
had passed between them assured me of this.
It was evident that in their former intercourse,
the passive disposition of the one had been
habitually influenced by the active energy of
the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Roches-
ter's dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's
arrival ? Why had the mere name of this
unresisting individual — whom his word now
sufficed to control like a child — fallen on him,
a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall
on an oak?

Oh ! I could not forget his look and his
paleness when he whispered : " Jane, I have
got a blow — I have got a blow, Jane." I
could not forget how the arm had trembled

122 JANE EYRE.

which he rested on my shoulder : and it
was no light matter which could thus bow the
resolute spirit and thrill the vigorous frame of
Fairfax Rochester.

" When will he come ? When will he
come ?" I cried inwardly, as the night lingered
and lingered — as my bleeding patient drooped,
moaned, sickened : and neither day nor aid
arrived. I had, again and again, held the
water to Mason's white lips ; again and again
offered him the stimulating salts : my efforts
seemed ineffectual : either bodily or mental
suffering, or loss of blood, or all three com-
bined, were fast prostrating his strength. He
moaned so, and looked so weak, wild and
lost, I feared he was dying ; and I might not
even speak to him !

The candle, wasted at last, went out ; as it
expired, I perceived streaks of grey light
edging the window curtains : dawn was then
approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far
below, out of his distant kennel in the court-
yard : hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted :
in five minutes more the grating key, the yield-
ing lock, warned me my watch was relieved.
It could not have lasted more than two hours :
many a week has seemed shorter.

JANE EYRE. 123

Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the
surgeon he had been to fetch.

" Now, Carter, be on the alert ;" he said to
this last : " I give you but half an hour for
dressing the wound, fastening the bandages,
getting the patient down stairs and all."

" But is he fit to move, sir ? "

ie No doubt of it ; it is nothing serious : he
is nervous, his spirits must be kept up. Come,
set to work."

Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain,
drew up the holland blind, let in all the day-
light he could ; and I was surprised and cheered
to see how far dawn was advanced : what rosy
streaks were beginning to brighten the East.
Then he approached Mason, whom the sur-
geon was already handling.

" Now, my good fellow, how are you ? " he
asked.

" She 's done for me, I fear," was the faint
reply.

" Not a whit ! — courage ! This day fort-
night you '11 hardly be a pin the worse of it :
you 've lost a little blood ; that 's all. Carter,
assure him there 's no danger."

" I can do that conscientiously/' said Carter,
who had now undone the bandages ; " only I
wish I could have got here sooner : he would

124 JANE EYRE.

not have bled so much — hut how is this ? The
flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut?
This wound was not done with a knife : there
have been teeth here ? "

" She bit me," he murmured. " She wor-
ried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the
knife from her."

" You should not have yielded : you should
have grappled with her at once," said Mr.
Rochester.

" But under such circumstances, what could
one do ? " returned Mason. " Oh it was fright-
ful !" he added, shuddering. " And I did not
expect it : she looked so quiet at first."

" I warned you," was his friend's answer ;
" I said — be on your guard when you go near
her. * Besides, you might have waited till to-
morrow and had me with you : it was mere
folly to attempt the interview to-night, and
alone."

" I thought I could have done some good."

" You thought ! you thought ! Yes ; it
makes me impatient to hear you : but, how-
ever, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer
enough for not taking my advice ; so I '11 say
no more. Carter — hurry ! hurry ! The sun
will soon rise, and I must have him off."

" Directly, sir ; the shoulder is just ban-

JANE EYRE. 125

daged. I must look to this other wound in the
arm : she has had her teeth here too, I think."

" She sucked the blood : she said she 'd drain
my heart," said Mason.

I saw Mr. Rochester shudder : a singularly
marked expression of disgust, horror, hatred
warped his countenance almost to distortion ;
but he only said : —

" Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind
her gibberish : don't repeat it."

" I wish I could forget it," was the answer.

" You will when you are out of the country :
when you get back to Spanish Town you may
think of her as dead and buried — or rather
you need not think of her at all."

" Impossible to forget this night !"

" It is not impossible : have some energy,
man. You thought you were as dead as a
herring two hours since, and you are all alive
and talking now. There! — Carter has done
with you or nearly so ; I '11 make you decent
in a trice. Jane," (he turned to me for the
first time since his re-entrance) " take this
key: go down into my bed-room, and walk
straight forward into my dressing-room ; open
the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a
clean shirt and neck-handkerchief; bring them
here : and be nimble."

126 JANE EYRE.

I went ; sought the repository he had men-
tioned, found the articles named, and returned
with them.

" Now," said he, " go to the other side of
the bed while I order his toilet; but don't
leave the room : you may be wanted again."

I retired as directed.

" Was anybody stirring below when you
went down, Jane?" enquired Mr. Rochester,
presently.

" No, sir ; all was very still."

" We shall get you off cannily, Dick : and
it will be better, both for your sake, and for
that of the poor creature in yonder. I have
striven long to avoid exposure, and I should
not like it to come at last. Here, Carter,
help him on with his waistcoat. Where did
you leave your furred cloak? You can't
travel a mile without that, I know, in this
damned cold climate. In your room? — Jane,
run down to Mr. Mason's room, — the one
next mine, — and fetch a cloak you will see
there."

Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an
immense mantle, lined and edged with fur.

" Now I 've another errand for you," said
my untiring master ; " you must away to my
room again. What a mercy you are shod

JANE EYRE, 127

with velvet, Jane ! — a clod-hopping messenger
would never do at this juncture. You must
open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and
take out a little phial and a little glass you
will find there, — quick!"

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired
vessels.

" That 's well ! Now, doctor, I shall take
the liberty of administering a dose myself; on
my own responsibility. I got this cordial at
Rome, of an Italian charlatan, — a fellow you
would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing
to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon
occasion : as now for instance. Jane, a little
water."

He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled
it from the water bottle on the wash-stand.

"That will do:— now wet the lip of the
phial."

I did so: he measured twelve drops of a
crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason.

" Drink, Richard : it will give you the heart
you lack, for an hour or so."

" But will it hurt me ? — is it inflammatory V

"Drink! drink! drink!"

Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently
useless to resist. He was dressed now: he
still looked pale, but he was no longer gory

128 JANE EYRE.

and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three
minutes after he had swallowed the liquid ; he
then took his arm : —

" Now I am sure you can get on your feet,"
he said; — " try."

The patient rose.

" Carter, take him under the other shoulder.
Be of good cheer, Richard ; step out : —
that 'sit!"

" I do feel hetter," remarked Mr. Mason.

" I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on
before us away to the backstairs ; unbolt the
side passage door, and tell the driver of the
post-chaise you will see in the yard — or just
outside, for I told him not to drive his rattling
wheels over the pavement — to be ready ; we are
coming : and Jane, if any one is about, come
to the foot of the stairs and hem."

It was by this time half-past five, and the
sun was on the point of rising ; but I found the
kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage
door was fastened ; I opened it with as little
noise as possible : all the yard was quiet ; but
the gates stood wide open, and there was a
post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and
driver seated on the box, stationed outside. I
approached him, and said the gentlemen were
coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully

JANE EYRE. 129

round and listened. The stillness of early
morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains
were yet drawn over the servants' chamber
windows ; little birds were j ust twittering in the
blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs
drooped like white garlands over the wall
enclosing one side of the yard ; the carriage
horses stamped from time to time in their
closed stables : all else was still.

The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, sup-
ported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon,
seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they
assisted him into the chaise; Carter fol-
lowed.

" Take care of him," said Mr. Rochester to
the latter, " and keep him at your house till
he is quite well : I shall ride* over in a day or
two to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it
with you?"

" The fresh air revives me, Fairfax."

" Leave the window open on his side, Carter ;
there is no wind — good-bye, Dick."

" Fairfax "

"Well, what is it?"

" Let her be taken care of; let her be treated

as tenderly as may be : let her " he stopped

and burst into tears.

"I do my best; and have done it, and will

VOL. II. K

130 JANE EYRE.

do it," was the answer : lie shut up the chaise
door, and the vehicle drove away.

" Yet would to God there was an end of all
this!" added Mr. Rochester, as he closed and
barred the heavy yard-gates. This done, he
moved with slow step and abstracted air,
towards a door in the wall bordering the
orchard. I, supposing he had done with me,
prepared to return to the house ; again, how-
ever, I heard him call "Jane!" He had
opened the portal and stood at it, waiting
for me.

" Come where there is some freshness, for a
few moments," he said ; " that house is a mere
dungeon : don't you feel it so ?"

" It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir."

" The glamour of inexperience is over your
eyes," he answered ; " and you see it through
a charmed medium : you cannot discern that
the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cob-
webs ; that the marble is sordid slate, and the
polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly
bark. Now here (he pointed to the leafy en-
closure we had entered) all is real, sweet, and
pure."

He strayed down a walk edged with box ;
with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry trees
on one side, and a border on the other, full of

JANE EYRE. 131

all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-
williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with
southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fra-
grant herbs. They were fresh now as a suc-
cession of April showers and gleams, followed
by a lovely spring morning, could make them :
the sun was just entering the dappled east,
and his light illumined the wreathed and
dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet
walks under them.

" Jane, will you have a flower V

He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on
the bush, and offered it to me.

" Thank you, sir."

" Do you like this sunrise, Jane ? That
sky with its high and light clouds which are
sure to melt away as the day waxes warm —
this placid and balmy atmosphere?"

" I do, very much."

" You have passed a strange night, Jane."

" Yes, sir."

" And it has made you look pale — were you
afraid when I left you alone with Mason?"

" I was afraid of some one coming out of the
inner room."

"But I had fastened the door — I had the
key in my pocket : I should have been a care-
less shepherd if I had left a lamb — my pet

k 2

132 JANE EYRE.

lamb — so near a wolf s-den, unguarded : you
were safe."

" Will Grace Poole live here still, sir V

" Oh, yes ! don't trouble your head about
her — put the thing out of your thoughts."

" Yet it seems to me your life is hardly
secure whilst she stays."

" Never fear — I will take care of myself."

" Is the danger you apprehended last night
gone by now, sir?"

" I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out
of England : nor even then. To live, for me,
Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may
crack and spue fire any day."

" But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led.
Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with
him : he will never set you at defiance, or wil-
fully injure you."

" Oh, no ! Mason will not defy me ; nor
knowing it, will he hurt me — but, uninten-
tionally, he might in a moment, by one care-
less word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for
ever of happiness."

" Tell him to be cautious, sir : let him know
what you fear, and show him how to avert the
danger."

He laughed sardonically, hastily took my
hand, and as hastily threw it from him.

JANE EYRE. 133

" If I could do that, simpleton, where would
the clanger be ? Annihilated in a moment.
Ever since I have known Mason, I have only
had to say to him ' Do that/ and the thing has
been done. But I cannot give him orders in
this case : I cannot sav ' Beware of harming:
me, Richard ; ' for it is imperative that I
should keep him ignorant that harm to me is
possible. Now you look puzzled ; and I will
puzzle you farther. You are my little friend,
are you not?"

" I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in
all that is right."

" Precisely : I see you do. I see genuine
contentment in your gait and mien, your eye
and face, when you are helping me and pleas-
ing me — working for me, and with me, in, as
you characteristically say, ' all that is right: for
if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there
would be no light-footed running, no neat-
handed alacrity, no lively glance and animated
complexion. My friend would then turn to
me, quiet and pale, and would say, f No, sir;
that is impossible : I cannot do it, because it is
wrong;' and would become immutable as a
iixed star. Well, you too have power over
me, and may injure me : yet I dare not show
you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and

134 JANE EYRE.

friendly as you are, you should transfix me at
once."

" If you have no more to fear from Mr.
Mason than you have from me, sir, you are
very safe."

" God grant it may be so ! Here, Jane, is
an arbour ; sit down."

The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined
with ivy; it contained a rustic seat. Mr.
Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for
me : but I stood before him.

" Sit," he said ; " the bench is long enough
for two. You don't hesitate to take a place at
my side, do you 1 Is that wrong, Jane ? "

I answered him by assuming it : to refuse
would, I felt, have been unwise.

" Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks
the dew — while all the flowers in this old
garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch
their young ones' breakfast out of the Thorn-
field, and the early bees do their first spell of
work — I '11 put a case to you ; which you must
endeavour to suppose your own : but first, look
at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not
fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you
err in staying."

" No, sir ; I am content."

" Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy : — -

JANE EYRE. 135

suppose you were no longer a girl well reared
and disciplined, but a wild boy, indulged from
childhood upwards ; imagine yourself in a
remote foreign land ; conceive that you there
commit a capital error, no matter of what
nature or from what motives, but one whose
consequences must follow you through life and
taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say a
crime ; I am not speaking of shedding of blood
or any other guilty act, which might make the
perpetrator amenable to the law : my word is
error. The results of what you have done
become in time to you utterly insupportable ;
you take measures to obtain relief: unusual
measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable.
Still you are miserable ; for hope has quitted
you on the very confines of life : your sun at
noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will
not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and
base associations have become the sole food
of your memory : you wander here and there,
seeking rest in exile ; happiness in pleasure — I
mean in heartless, sensual pleasure — such as
dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-
weary and soul-withered, you come home after
years of voluntary banishment; you make
a new acquaintance — how or where no matter :
you find in this stranger much of the good

136 JANE EYRE.

and bright qualities which you have sought for
twenty years, and never before encountered ;
and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and
without taint. Such society revives, regene-
rates : you feel better days come back — higher
wishes, purer feelings ; you desire to recom-
mence your life, and to spend what remains
to you of days in a way more worthy of an
immortal being. To attain this end, are you
justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom —
a mere conventional impediment, which neither
your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment
approves 1 "

He paused for an answer : and what was I
to say 1 Oh, for some good spirit to suggest
a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain
aspiration ! The west wind whispered in the
ivy round me ; but no gentle Ariel borrowed
its breath as a medium of speech : the birds
sang in the tree-tops ; but their song, however
sweet, was inarticulate.

Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query :
" Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-
seeking and repentant man, justified in daring
the world's opinion, in order to attach to him
for ever, this gentle, gracious, genial stranger :
thereby securing his own peace of mind and
regeneration of life?"

JANE EYRE. 137

" Sir," I answered, " a Wanderer's repose
or a Sinner's reformation should never depend
on a fellow-creature. Men and women die ;
philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians
in goodness: if any one you know has suf-
fered and erred, let him look higher than
his equals for strength to amend, and solace
to heal."

" But the instrument — the instrument !
God, who does the work, ordains the instru-
ment. I have myself— I tell it you without
parable — been a worldly, dissipated, restless
man; and I believe I have found the in-
strument for my cure, in "

He paused : the birds went on carolling,
the leaves lightly rustling. I almost wondered
they did not check their songs and whispers
to catch the suspended revelation : but they
would have had to wait many minutes — so
long was the silence protracted. At last I
looked up at the tardy speaker : he was looking
eagerly at me.

" Little friend/' said he, in quite a changed
tone — while his face changed too ; losing all *
its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh
and sarcastic, — " you have noticed, my tender
penchant for Miss Ingram : don't you think

138 JANE EYRE

if I married her she would regenerate me with
a vengeance ? "

He got up instantly, went quite to the other
end of the walk, and when he came back he
was humming a tune.

" Jane, Jane," said he, stopping before me,
" you are quite pale with your vigils : don't
you curse me for disturbing your rest ? "

"Curse you? No, sir."

" Shake hands in confirmation of the word.
What cold fingers ! They were warmer last
night when I touched them at the door of the
mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you
watch with me again ?"

" Whenever I can be useful, sir."

" For instance, the night before I am mar-
ried ? I am sure I shall not be able to sleep.
Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me
company? To yon I can talk of my lovely
one; for now you have seen her and know
her."

" Yes, sir."

" She's a rare one, is she not, Jane ?"

" Yes, sir."

"A strapper — a real strapper, Jane: big,
brown, and buxom ; with hair just such as the
ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me !

JANE EYRE. 139

there's Dent and Lynn in the stables ! Go in
by the shrubbery, through that wicket."

As I went one way, he went another, and
I heard him in the yard, saying cheeringly : —

" Mason got the start of you all this morn-
ing ; he was gone before sunrise : I rose at
four to see him off."

140 JANE EYRE.

CHAPTER VI.

Presentiments are strange things ! and so are
sympathies ; and so are signs : and the three com-
bined make one mystery to which humanity
has not yet found the key. I never laughed at
presentiments in my life ; because I have had
strange ones of my own. Sympathies I believe
exist: (for instance, between far-distant, long-
absent, wholly estranged relatives ; asserting,
notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of
the source to which each traces his origin)
whose workings baffle mortal comprehension.
And signs, for aught we know, may be but the
sympathies of Nature with man.

When I was a little girl, only six years old,
I, one night, heard Bessie Leaven say to
Martha Abbott that she had been dreaming
about a little child ; and that to dream of chil-
dren was a sure sign of trouble, either to one's
self or one's kin. The saying might have

JANE EYRE. Ml

worn out of my memory, had not a circum-
stance immediately followed which served in-
delibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie
was sent for home to the deathbed of her
little sister.

Of late I had often recalled this saying and
this incident ; for during the past week scarcely
a night had gone over my couch that had not
brought with it a dream of an infant : which I
sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes
dandled on my knee, sometimes watched play-
ing with daisies on a lawn ; or again, dabbling
its hands in running water. It was a wailing
child this night, and a laughing one the next :
now it nestled close to me, and now it ran from
me ; but whatever mood the apparition evinced,
whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven
successive nights to meet me the moment I
entered the land of slumber.

I did not like this iteration of one idea — this
strange recurrence of one image; and I grew
nervous as bed-time approached, and the hour
of the vision drew near. It was from com-
panionship with this baby-phantom I had been
roused on that moonlight night when I heard
the cry ; and it was on the afternoon of the day
following I was summoned down stairs by a
message that some one wanted me in Mrs.

142 JANE EYRE.

Fairfax's room. On repairing thither, I
found a man waiting for me, having the ap-
pearance of a gentleman's servant: he was
dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he
held in his hand was surrounded with a crape
band.

" I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss,"
he said, rising as I entered ; " but my name is
Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed
when you were at Gateshead eight or nine
years since, and I live there still."

" Oh, Robert ! how do you do ? I remem-
ber you very well : you used to give me a ride
sometimes on Miss Georgiana's bay pony.
And how is Bessie? You are married to
Bessie?"

" Yes, Miss : my wife is very hearty, thank
you ; she brought me another little one about
two months since — we have three now — and
both mother and child are thriving."

" And are the family well at the House,
Robert?"

" I am sorry I can't give you better news of
them, Miss : they are very badly at present —
in great trouble."

" I hope no one is dead," I said, glancing at
his black dress. He too looked down at the
crape round his hat and replied : —

JANE EYRE. 143

" Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at
his chambers in London."

"Mr. John?"

"Yes."

" And how does his mother bear it ?"

" Why you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a com-
mon mishap : his life has been very wild : these
last three years he gave himself up to strange
ways ; and his death was shocking."

"I heard from Bessie he was not doing
well." • •

" Doing well ! He could not do worse : he
ruined his health and his estate amongst the
worst men and the worst women. He got into
debt and into jail : his mother helped him out
twice, but as soon as he was free he returned
to his old companions and habits. His head
was not strong : the knaves he lived amongst
fooled him beyond anything I ever heard.
He came down to Gateshead about three
weeks ago and wanted Missis to give up all to
him. Missis refused : her means have long
been much reduced by his extravagance ; so he
went back again, and the next news was that
he was dead. How he died, God knows ! — they
say he killed himself."

I was silent : the tidings were frightful.
Robert Leaven resumed : —

144 JANE EYRE.

" Missis had been out of health herself for
some time : she had got very stout, but was not
strong with it; and the loss of money and fear
of poverty were quite breaking her down.
The information about Mr. John's death and
the manner of it came too suddenly : it brought
on a stroke. She was three days without
speaking ; but last Tuesday she seemed rather
better : she appeared as if she wanted to say
something, and kept making signs to my wife
arid mumbling. It was only yesterday morn-
ing, however, that Bessie understood she was
pronouncing your name; and at last she made
out the words, ' Bring Jane — fetch Jane Eyre :
I want to speak to her/ Bessie is not sure
whether she is in her right mind, or means
anything by the words ; but she told Miss Reed
and Miss Georgiana, and advised them to send
for you. The young ladies put it off at first:
but their mother grew so restless and said,
" Jane, Jane," so many times, that at last they
consented. I left Gateshead yesterday ; and if
you can get ready, Miss, I should like to take
you back with me early to-morrow morning."

" Yes, Robert, I shall be ready : it seems to
me that I ought to go."

" I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was
sure you would not refuse : but I suppose

JANE EYRE. 145

you will have to ask leave before you can get
off?"

" Yes ; and I will do it now ; " and having
directed him to the servants' hall, and recom-
mended him to the care of John's wife, and
the attentions of John himself, I went in search
of Mr. Rochester.

He was not in any of the lower rooms ; he
was not in the yard, the stables, or the grounds.
I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him; —
yes ; she believed he was playing billiards with
Miss Ingram. To the billiard room I has-
tened : the click of balls and the hum of voices
resounded thence ; Mr. Rochester, Miss In-
gram, the two Misses Eshton and their
admirers, were all busied in the game. It
required some courage to disturb so interesting
a party ; my errand, however, was one I could
not defer, so I approached the master where
he stood at Miss Ingram's side. She turned
as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily :
her eyes seemed to demand, " What can the
creeping creature want now?" and when I
said, in a low voice, * Mr. Rochester," she
made a movement as if tempted to order me
away. I remember her appearance at the
moment, — it was very graceful and very strik-
ing : she wore a morning robe of sky-blue

VOL. II. l

146 JANE EYRE.

crape ; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her
hair. She had been all animation with the
game, and irritated pride did not lower the
expression of her haught lineaments.

" Does that person want you?" she inquired
of Mr. Rochester ; and Mr. Rochester turned
to see who the " person" was. He made a
curious grimace, — one of his strange and equi-
vocal demonstrations — threw down his cue and
followed me from the room.

"Well, Jane?" he said, as he rested his
back against the school-room door, which he
had shut.

" If you please, sir, I want leave of absence
for a week or two."

" What to do ?— Where to go ?"

"To see a sick lady who has sent for me."

? What sick lady ? — Where does she live ?"

" At Gateshead, in shire."

" shire? That is a hundred miles off!

Who may she be that sends for people to see
her at that distance ? "

" Her name is Reed, sir, — Mrs. Reed."

" Reed of Gateshead ? There was a Reed
of Gateshead, a magistrate."

" It is his widow, sir."

" And what have you to do with her ? How
do you know lier?"

JANE EYRE. 147

"Mr. Reed was my uncle, — my mother's
brother."

"The deuce he was! You never told me
that before : you always said you had no
relations."

" None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed
is dead, and his wife cast me off."

"Why?"

" Because I was poor, and burdensome, and
she disliked me."

" But Reed left children ? — you must have
cousins ? Sir George Lynn was talking of a
Reed of Gateshead, yesterday — who he said
was one of the veriest rascals on town ; and
Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of
the same place, who was much admired for her
beauty, a season or two ago, in London.

" John Reed is dead, too, sir : he ruined
himself and half ruined his family, and is sup-
posed to have committed suicide. The news so
shocked his mother that it brought on an
apoplectic attack."

" And what good can you do her? Non-
sense, Jane ! I would never think of running
a hundred miles to see an old lady who will,
perhaps, be dead before you reach her : be-
sides, you say she cast you off."

L 2

148 JANE EYRE.

" Yes, sir, but that is long ago ; and when her
circumstances were very different : I could not
be easy to neglect her wishes now."

" How long will you stay ?"

" As short a time as possible, sir."

" Promise me only to stay a week "

" I had better not pass my word : I might
be obliged to break it."

" At all events you will come back : you will
not be induced under any pretext to take up a
permanent residence with her?"

" Oh, no ! I shall certainly return if all be
well."

" And who goes with you ? You don't
travel a hundred miles alone ? "

" "No, sir ; she has sent her coachman."

" A person to be trusted ? "

" Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the
family."

Mr. Rochester meditated. " When do you
wish to go ? "

" Early to-morrow morning, sir."

"Well, you must have some money; you
can't travel without money, and I daresay you
have not much : I have given you no salary
yet. How much have you in the world,
Jane?" he asked, smiling.

I drew out my purse ; a meagre thing it

JANE EYRE. 149

was. " Five shillings, sir." He took the
purse, poured the hoard into his palm and
chuckled over it as if its scantiness pleased
him. Soon he produced his pocket-book :
" Here," said he, offering me a note : it was
fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen.
I told him I had no change.

" I don't want change : you know that.
Take your wages.'5

I declined accepting more than was my due.
He scowled at first ; then, as if recollecting
something, he said : —

" Right, right ! Better not give you all
now : you would, perhaps, stay away three
months if you had fifty pounds. There are
ten : is it not plenty ? "

" Yes, sir, but now you owe me five."

" Come back for it then : I am your banker
for forty pounds."

" Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention
another matter of business to you while I have
the opportunity."

" Matter of business ? I'm curious to hear
it.

" You have as good as informed me, sir,
that you are going shortly to be married?"

"Yes: what then?"

* In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to

150 JANE EYRE.

school : I am sure you will perceive the neces-
sity of it."

" To get her out of my bride's way ; who
might otherwise walk over her rather too
emphatically. There's sense in the sugges-
tion ; not a doubt of it : Adele, as you say,
must go to school ; and you, of course, must
march straight to — the devil?"

" I hope not, sir : but I must seek another
situation somewhere."

" In course ! " he exclaimed, with a twang
of voice and a distortion of features equally
fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me
some minutes.

" And old Madam Reed, or the Misses,
her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek
a place, I suppose?"

" No sir ; I am not on such terms with my
relatives as would justify me in asking favours
of them — but I shall advertise."

" You shall walk up the pyramids of
Egypt!" he growled. "At your peril you
advertise ! I wish I had only offered you a
sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me
back nine pounds, Jane ; I'vea use for it."

" And so have I, sir," I returned, putting
my hands and my purse behind me. " I
could not spare the money on any account."

JANE EYRE. 151

" Little niggard !" said he, " refusing me a
pecuniary request ! Give me five pounds,
Jane."

" Not five shillings, sir ; nor five pence."

" Just let me look at the cash."

" No, sir ; you are not to be trusted."

"Jane!"

"Sir?"

" Promise me one thing."

" I '11 promise you anything, sir, that I think
I am likely to perform."

" Not to advertise : and to trust this quest
of a situation to me. I'll find you one in
time."

" I shall be glad so to do, sir ; if you, in your
turn, will promise that I and Adele shall be
both safe out of the house before your bride
enters it."

" Very well ! very well ! I '11 pledge my
word on it. You go to-morrow, then ? "

" Yes, sir ; early."

" Shall you come down to the drawing-room
after dinner?"

" No, sir, I must prepare for the journey."

" Then you and I must bid good-bye for a
little while?"

" I suppose so, sir."

"And how do people perform that cere-

152 JANE EYRE.

liiouy of parting, Jane ? Teach me : I 'm not
quite up to it."

" They say farewell ; or any other form they
prefer."

" Then say it."

" Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present,"

"What must I say?"

" The same, if you like, sir."

" Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present : is
that all?"

"Yes."

" It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry,
and unfriendly. I should like something else :
a little addition to the rite. If one shook
hands, for instance ; but no, — that would not
content me either. So you'll do no more
than say ' farewell,' Jane ?"

i( It is enough, sir : as much good-will may
be conveyed in one hearty word as in many."

« Very likely ; but it is blank and cool —
' farewell.' "

"How long is he going to stand with his
back against that door?" I asked myself; " I
want to commence my packing." The dinner-
bell rang, and suddenly away he bolted, with-
out another syllable : I saw him no more
during the day, and was off before he had risen
in the morning.

JANE EYRE. 153

I reached the lodge at Gateshead about
five o'clock in the afternoon of the first of
May : I stepped in there before going up to
the hall. It was very clean and neat; the
ornamental windows were hung with little
white curtains ; the floor was spotless ; the
grate and fire-irons were burnished bright,
and the fire burnt clear. Bessie sat on the
hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and
his sister played quietly in a corner.

"Bless you! — I knew you would come!"
exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I entered.

" Yes, Bessie," said I, after I had kissed
her ; " and I trust I am not too late. How is
Mrs. Keed?-— Alive still, I hope."

" Yes, she is alive ; and more sensible and
collected than she was. The doctor says she
may linger a week or two yet : but he hardly
thinks she will finally recover."

"Has she mentioned me lately?"

" She was talking of you only this morning,
and wishing you would come : but she is
sleeping now ; or was ten minutes ago, when I
was up at the house. She generally lies in a
kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and wakes
up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself
here an hour, Miss; and then I will go up
with you?"

154

JANE EYRE.

Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her
sleeping child in the cradle and went to
welcome him : afterwards she insisted on my
taking off my bonnet and having some tea ; for
she said I looked pale and tired. I was glad
to accept her hospitality ; and I submitted to
be relieved of my travelling garb just as pas-
sively as I used to let her undress me when a
child.

Old times crowded fast back on me as I
watched her bustling about — setting out the
tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread
and butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between
whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an occa-
sional tap or push, just as she used to give
me in former days. Bessie had retained her
quick temper as well as her light foot and
good looks.

Tea ready, I was going to approach the
table ; but she desired me to sit still, quite in
her old, peremptory tones. I must be served
at the fire-side, she said ; and she placed before
me a little round stand with my cup and a
plate of toast, absolutely as she used to ac-
commodate me with some privately purloined
dainty on a nursery chair : and I smiled and
obeyed her as in bygone days.

She wanted to know if I was happy at

JANE EYRE. 155

Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a person
the mistress was ; and when I told her there
was only a master, whether he was a nice
gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her
he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gen-
tleman ; and that he treated me kindly, and
I was content. Then I went on to describe
to her the gay company that had lately been
staying at the house; and to these details
Bessie listened with interest : they were pre-
cisely of the kind she relished.

In such conversation an hour was soon
gone : Bessie restored to me my bonnet, &c.
and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge
for the hall. It was also accompanied by her
that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked down
the path I was now ascending. On a dark,
misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hos-
tile roof with a desperate and embittered heart —
a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation —
to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood : that
bourne so far away and unexplored. The
same hostile roof now again rose before me :
my prospects were doubtful yet ; and I had
yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer
on the face of the earth : but I experienced
firmer trust in myself and my own powers,
and less withering dread of oppression. The

156 JANE EYRE.

gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now
quite healed ; and the flame of resentment
extinguished.

" You shall go into the breakfast-room first,"
said Bessie, as she preceded me through the
hall ; " the young ladies will be there."

In another moment I was within that apart-
ment. There was every article of furniture
looking just as it did on the morning I was
first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst : the
very rug he had stood upon still covered the
hearth. Glancing at the book-cases, I thought
I could distinguish the two volumes of Be-
wick's British Birds occupying their old place
on the third shelf, and Gulliver's Travels and
the Arabian Nights ranged just above. The
inanimate objects were not changed: but the
living things had altered past recognition.

Two young ladies appeared before me ;
one very tall, almost as tall as Miss Ingram, —
very thin too, with a sallow face and severe
mien. There was something ascetic in her
look, which was augmented by the extreme
plainness of a strait-skirted, black, stuff dress,
a starched linen collar, hair combed away
from the temples, and the nun-like ornament
of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix.
This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could

JANE EYRE. 157

trace little resemblance to her former self
in that elongated and colourless visage.

The other was as certainly Georgiana; but
not the Georgiana I remembered — the slim
and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was a full-
blown, very plump damsel, fair as wax- work ;
with handsome and regular features, languish-
ing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair. The
hue of her dress was black too ; but its fashion
was so different from her sister's — so much
more flowing and becoming — it looked as stylish
as the other's looked puritanical.

In each of the sisters there was one trait
of the mother — and only one : the thin and
pallid elder daughter had her parent's
Cairngorm eye ; the blooming and luxuriant
younger girl had her contour of jaw and
chin, — perhaps a little softened, but still im-
parting an indescribable hardness to the coun-
tenance, otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.

Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome
me, and both addressed me by the name of
" Miss Eyre." Eliza's greeting was delivered
in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile ; and
then she sat down again, fixed her eyes on
the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana
added to her " How d'ye do ?" several common-
places about my journey, the weather, and

158 JANE EYRE.

so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone ; and
accompanied by sundry side-glances that mea-
sured me from head to foot — now traversing
the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now
lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage
bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable
way of letting you know that they think you a
"quiz," without actually saying the words. A
certain superciliousness of look, coolness of
manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully
their sentiments on the point, without com-
mitting them by any positive rudeness in word
or deed.

A sneer, however, whether covert or open,
had now no longer that power over me it once
possessed : as I sat between my cousins, I was
surprised to find how easy I felt under the
total neglect of the one and the semi-sarcastic
attentions of the other — Eliza did not mortify,
nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had
other things to think about : within the last
few months feelings had been stirred in me so
much more potent than any they could raise: —
pains and pleasures so much more acute and
exquisite had been excited, than any it was
in their power to inflict or bestow — that their
airs gave me no concern either for good or
bad.

JANE EYRE. 159

"How is Mrs. Reed?" I asked soon, look-
ing calmly at Georgiana ; who thought fit to
bridle at the direct address, as if it were an un-
expected liberty.

" Mrs. Reed 1 Ah ! mania you mean ; she
is extremely poorly : I doubt if you can see
her to-night."

" If," said I, " you would just step up stairs
and tell her I am come, I should be much
obliged to you."

Georgiana almost started, and she opened
her blue eyes wild and wide. " I know she
had a particular wish to see me," I added,
" and I would not defer attending to her
desire longer than is absolutely necessary."

<: Mama dislikes being disturbed in an even-
ing," remarked Eliza. I soon rose, quietly
took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and
said I would just step out to Bessie — who was,
I dared say, in the kitchen — and ask her to
ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to
receive me or not to-night. I went, and hav-
ing found Bessie and despatched her on my
errand, I proceeded to take further measures.
It had heretofore been my habit always to
shrink from arrogance : received as I had
been to-day, I should, a year ago, have re-
solved to quit Gateshead the very next morn-

160 JANE EYRE.

ing ; now, it was disclosed to me all at once,
that that would be a foolish plan. I had taken
a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt,
and I must stay with her till she was better — or
dead : as to her daughters' pride or folly, I
must put it on one side : make myself indepen-
dent of it. So I addressed the housekeeper ;
asked her to show me a room, told her I
should probably be a visitor here for a week
or two, had my trunk conveyed to my chamber,
and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie
on the landing.

" Missis is awake," said she ; " I have told
her you are here : come and let us see if she
will know you."

I did not need to be guided to the well-
known room : to which I had so often been
summoned for chastisement or reprimand in
former days. I hastened before Bessie, I
softly opened the door : a shaded light stood
on the table, for it was now getting dark.
There was the great four-post bed with amber
hangings as of old ; there the toilet-table, the
arm-chair and the footstool : at which I had a
hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask
pardon for offences, by me, uncommitted. I
looked into a certain corner near, half-expect-
ing to see the slim outline of a once dreaded

JANE EYRE. 161

switch ; which used to lurk there, waiting to
leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm
or shrinking neck. I approached the bed ; I
opened the curtains and leant over the high-
piled pillows.

Well did I remember Mrs. Heed's face, and
I eagerly sought the familiar image. It is a
happy thing that time quells the longings of
vengeance, and hushes the promptings of rage
and aversion : I had left this woman in bitter-
ness and hate, and I came back to her now
with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for
her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to
forget and forgive all injuries — to be reconciled,
and clasp hands in amity.

The well-known, face was there : stern, re-
lentless as ever — there was that peculiar eye
which nothing could melt; and the somewhat
raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow. How
often had it lowered on me menace and hate !
and how the recollection of childhood's terrors
and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line
now ! And yet I stooped down and kissed
her : she looked at me.

" Is this Jane Eyre ? " she said.
" Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear
aunt?"

I had once vowed that I would never call

VOL. II. m

162

JANE EYRE.

her aunt again : I thought it no sin to forget
and break that vov/, now. My fingers had
fastened on her hand which lay outside the
sheet : had she pressed mine kindly, I should
at that moment have experienced true pleasure.
But unimpressionable natures are not so soon
softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily
eradicated : Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and
turning her face rather from me, she remarked
that the night was warm. Again she regarded
me, so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of
me — her feeling towards me — was unchanged,
and unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye —
opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to tears —
that she was resolved to consider me bad to
the last ; because to believe me good, would
give her no generous pleasure : only a sense of
mortification.

I felt pain, and then I felt ire ; and then I
felt a determination to subdue her — to be her
mistress in spite both of her nature and her
will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood :
I ordered them back to their source. I brought
a chair to the bed-head : I sat down and leaned
over the pillow.

" You sent for me," I said, " and I am here;
and it is my intention to stay till I see how
you get on."

JANE EYRE. 163

" Ob, of course ! You have seen my
daughters Vs

" Yes."

" Well, you may tell them I wish you to
stay, till I can talk some things over with you I
have on my mind : to-night it is too late ; and I
have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was
something I wished to say — let me see "

The wandering look and changed utterance
told what wreck had taken place in her once
vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew
the bed-clothes round her ; my elbow, resting
on a corner of the quilt, fixed it down : she was
at once irritated.

" Sit up ! " said she, " don't annoy me with
holding the clothes fast — are you Jane Eyre?"

"lam Jane Eyre."

" I have had more trouble with that child
than any one would believe. Such a burden to
be left on my hands — and so much annoyance
as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her in-
comprehensible disposition, and her sudden
starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural
watchings of one's movements ! I declare she
talked to me once like something mad, or like
a fiend — no child ever spoke or looked as she
did: I was glad to get her away from the
house. What did they do with her at Lo-

m 2

164

JANE EYRE.

wood ? The fever broke out there, and many
of the pupils died. She, however, did not die :
but I said she did — I wish she had died !"

"A strange wish, Mrs. Heed : why do you
hate her so?"

" I had a dislike to her mother always ; for
she was my husband's only sister, and a
great favourite with him : he opposed the
family's disowning her when she made her
low marriage ; and when news came of her
death, he wept like a simpleton. He would
send for the baby ; though I entreated him
rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its
maintenance. I haled it the first time I set
my eyes on it — a sickly, whining, pining thing !
It would wail in its cradle all night long — not
screaming heartily like any other child, but
whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it ; and
he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had
been his own: more, indeed, than he ever
noticed his own at that age. He would try to
make my children friendly to the little beg-
gar : the darlings could not bear it, and he
was angry with them when they showed their
dislike. In his last illness, he had it brought
continually to his bedside ; and but an hour
before he died, he bound me by a vow to keep
the creature. I would as soon have been

JANE EYRE. 165

charged with a pauper brat out of a work-
house : but he was weak, naturally weak.
John does not at all resemble his father, and I
am glad of it : John is like me and like my
brothers — he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish
he would cease tormenting me with letters for
money ! I have no more money to give him :
we are getting poor. I must send away half
the servants and shut up part of the house; or
let it off- I can never submit to do that — yet
how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my
income goes in paying the interest of mort-
gages. John gambles dreadfully, and always
loses — poor boy ! He is beset by sharpers :
John is sunk and degraded — his look is
frightful — I feel ashamed for him when I see
him."

She was getting much excited. " I think I
had better leave her now," said I to Bessie,
who stood on the other side of the bed.

" Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often
talks in this way towards night — in the morn-
ing she is calmer."

I rose. " Stop ! " exclaimed Mrs. Heed.
" There is another thing I wished to say. He
threatens me — he continually threatens me
with his own death, or mine : and I dream
sometimes that I see him laid out with a great

166 JANE EYRE.

wound in his throat, or with a swollen and
blackened face. I am come to a strange pass :
I have heavy troubles. What is to be done ?
How is the money to be had ? "

Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to
take a sedative draught : she succeeded with
difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more
composed, and sank into a dozing state. I
then left her.

More than ten days elapsed before I had
again any conversation with her. She continu-
ed either delirious or lethargic ; and the doctor
forbade everything which could painfully excite
her. Meantime, I got on as well as I could
with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very
cold, indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the
day sewing, reading, or writing, and scarcely
utter a word either to me or her sister.
Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her
canary bird by the hour, and take no notice of
me. Bat I was determined not to seem at a
loss for occupation or amusement: I had
brought my drawing materials with rne, and
they served me for both.

Provided with a case of pencils, and some
sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart
from them, near the window, and busy myself
in sketching fancy vignettes, representing any

JANE EYRE. 167

scene that happened momentarily to shape
itself in the ever- shifting' kaleidoscope of
imagination : a glimpse of sea between two
rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing
its disk ; a group of reeds and water-flags,
and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers,
rising out of them ; an elf sitting in a hedge-
sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-
bloom.

One morning I fell to sketching a face :
what sort of a face it was to be I did not care
or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it
a broad point, and worked away. Soon I
had traced on the paper a broad and promi-
nent forehead, and a square lower outline of
visage : that contour gave me pleasure ; my
fingers proceeded actively to fill it with fea-
tures. Strongly marked horizontal eyebrows
must be traced under that brow ; then followed,
naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight
ridge and full nostrils ; then a flexible-looking
mouth, by no means narrow ; then a firm chin,
with a decided cleft down the middle of it : of
course, some black whiskers were wanted, and
some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and
waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes :
I had left them to the last, because they
required the most careful working. I drew

168

JANE EYRE.

them large ; I shaped them well : the eye-
lashes I traced long and sombre; the irids
lustrous and large. " Good ! but not quite
the thing," I thought, as I surveyed the
effect : " They want more force and spirit ;"
and I wrought the shades blacker, that the
lights might flash more brilliantly — a happy
touch or two secured success. There, I had a
friend's face under my gaze : and what did it
signify that those young ladies turned their
backs on me ? I looked at it ; I smiled at the
speaking likeness : I was absorbed and content.
" Is that a portrait of some one you know?"
asked Eliza, who had approached me unno-
ticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy
head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets.
Of course, I lied : it was, in fact, a Yerj faith-
ful representation of Mr. Rochester. But
what was that to her ; or to any one but my-
self ? Georgiana also advanced to look. The
other drawings pleased her much, but she
called that " an ugly man." They both
seemed surprised at my skill. I offered to
sketch their portraits ; and each, in turn, sat
for a pencil outline. Then Georgiana pro-
duced her alburn. I promised to contribute a
water-colour drawing : this put her at once
into good humour. She proposed a walk in

JANE EYRE. 169

the grounds. Before we had been out two
hours, we were deep in a confidential conver-
sation : she had favoured me with a descrip-
tion of the brilliant winter she had spent in
London two seasons ago — of the admiration
she had there excited — the attention she had
received ; and I even got hints of the titled
conquest she had made. In the course of the
afternoon and evening these hints were en-
larged on : various soft conversations were
reported, and sentimental scenes represented;
and, in short, a volume of a novel of fashion-
able life was that day improvised by her for
my benefit. The communications were re-
newed from day to day : they always ran on
the same theme — herself, her loves, and woes.
It was strange she never once adverted either
to her mother's illness, or her brother's death,
or the present gloomy state of the family pros-
pects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with
reminiscences of past gaiety, and aspirations
after dissipations to come. She passed about
five minutes each day in her mother's sick-
room, and no more.

Eliza still spoke little : she had evidently no
time to talk. I never saw a busier person
than she seemed to be ; yet it was difficult to
say what she did : or rather, to discover any

170 JANE EYRE.

result of her diligence. She had an alarum
to call her up early. I know not how she
occupied herself before breakfast, but after
that meal she divided her time into regular
portions ; and each hour had its allotted task.
Three times a day she studied a little book,
which I found, on inspection, was a Common
Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the
great attraction of that volume, and she said
" the Rubric." Three , hours she gave to
stitching, with gold thread, the border of a
square crimson cloth, almost large enough for
a carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the
use of this article, she informed me it was a
covering for the altar of a new church lately
erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted
to her diary ; two to working by herself in
the kitchen-garden ; and one to the regulation
of her accounts. She seemed to want no
company ; no conversation. I believe she was
happy in her way : this routine sufficed to her;
and nothing annoyed her so much as the
occurrence of any incident which forced her to
vary its clock-work regularity.

She told me one evening, when more dis-
posed to be communicative than usual, that
John's conduct, and the threatened ruin of the
family, had been a source of profound affliction

JANE EYRE. 171

to her : but she had now, she said, settled her
mind, and formed her resolution. Her own
fortune she had taken care to secure; and
when her mother died, — and it was wholly
improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she
should either recover or linger long — she
would execute a long-cherished project : seek
a retirement where punctual habits would \e
permanently secured from disturbance, and
place safe barriers between herself and a
frivolous world. I asked if Georgiana would
accompany her.

" Of course not. Georgiana and she had
nothing in common : they never had had. She
would not be burdened with her society for
any consideration. Georgiana should take her
own course ; and she, Eliza, would take hers."

Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart
to me, spent most of her time in lying on the
sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house,
and wishing over and over again that her
Aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up
to town. " It would be so much better," she
said, u if she could only get out of the way for
a month or two, till all was over." I did not
ask what she meant by " all being over," but I
suppose she referred to the expected decease
of her mother, and the gloomy sequel of

172 JANE EYRE.

funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more
notice of her sister's indolence and complaints
than if no such murmuring, lounging object
had been before her. One day, however, as
she put away her account-book, and unfolded
her embroidery, she suddenly took her up
thus : —

" Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal
than you, was certainly never allowed to cum-
ber the earth. You had no right to be born ;
for you make no use of life. Instead of living
for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being
ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness
on some other person's strength : if no one
can be found willing to burden her or him-
self with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing,
you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected,
miserable. Then, too, existence for you must
be a scene of continual change and excitement,
or else the world is a dungeon : you must be ad-
mired, you must be courted, you must be flat-
tered— you must have music, dancing, and
society — or you languish, you die away. Have
you no sense to devise a system which will make
you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but
your own ? Take one day ; share it into sec-
tions ; to each section apportion its task : leave
no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten

J AXE EYRE. 173

minutes, five minutes, — include all; do each
piece of business in its turn with method, with
rigid regularity. The day will close almost
before you are aware it has begun ; and you
are indebted to no one for helping you to get
rid of one vacant moment: you have had
to seek no one's company, conversation, sym-
pathy, forbearance : you have lived, in short,
as an independent being ought to do. Take
this advice : the first and last I shall offer you ;
then you will not want me or any one else,
happen what may. Neglect it — go on as here-
tofore, craving, whining, and idling — and suffer
the results of your idiocy : however bad and
insufferable they may be. I tell you this
plainly ; and listen : for though I shall no
more repeat what I am now about to say,
I shall steadily act on it. After my mother's
death, I wash my hands of you : from the
day her coffin is carried to the vault in Gates-
head church, you and I will be as separate
as if we had never known each other. You
need not think that because we chanced to
be born of the same parents, I shall suffer
you to fasten me down by even the feeblest
claim: I tell you this — if the whole human
race, ourselves excepted, were swept away,
and we two stood alone on the earth, I would

174 JANE EYRE.

leave you in tlie old world, and betake myself
to the new."

She closed her lips.

" You might have spared yourself the trouble
of delivering that tirade," answered Georgiana.
" Everybody knows you are the most selfish,
heartless creature in existence ; and i" know
your spiteful hatred towards ine : I have had
a specimen of it before in the trick you played
me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not
bear me to be raised above you, to have a
title, to be received into circles where you
dare not show your face, and so you acted
the spy and informer, and ruined my pros-
pects for ever." Georgiana took out her
handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour
afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable, and
assiduously industrious.

True, generous feeling is made small ac-
count of by some : but here were two natures
rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other
despicably savourless for the want of it. Feel-
ing without judgment is a washy draught
indeed ; but judgment untempered by feeling
is too bitter and husky a morsel for human
deglutition.

It was a wet and windy afternoon : Geor-
giana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the

JANE EYRE. 175

perusal of a novel ; Eliza was gone to attend
a saint's-day service at the New Church — for
in matters of religion she was a rigid formalist :
no weather ever prevented the punctual dis-
charge of what she considered her devotional
duties ; fair or foul she went to church thrice
every Sunday, and as often on week-days as
there were prayers.

I bethought myself to go up stairs and
see how the dying woman sped, who lay there
almost unheeded : the very servants paid her
but a remittent attention; the hired nurse,
being little looked after, would slip out of
the room whenever she could. Bessie was
faithful ; but she had her own family to mind,
and could only come occasionally to the Hall.
I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had
expected : no nurse was there ; the patient lay
still, and seemingly lethargic ; her livid face
sunk in the pillows : the fire was dying in
the grate. I renewed the fuel, re-arranged
the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who
could not now gaze on me, and then I moved
away to the window.

The rain beat strongly against the panes,
the wind blew tempestuously : " One lies
there," I thought, " who will soon be beyond
the war of earthly elements. Whither will

176 JANE EYRE.

that spirit — now struggling to quit its material
tenement — flit when at length released ?"

In pondering the great mystery, I thought
of Helen Burns : recalled her dying words —
her faith — her doctrine of the equality of dis-
embodied souls. I was still listening in
thought to her well-remembered tones — still
picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her
wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay
on her placid deathbed, and whispered her
longing to be restored to her divine Father's
bosom — when a feeble voice murmured from
the couch behind : " Who is that ? "

I knew Mrs. Heed had not spoken for
days : was she reviving ? I went up to her.

" It is I, Aunt Reed."

" Who — 1 ? " was her answer. " Who are
you"?" looking at me with surprise and a
sort of alarm, but still not wildly. " You
are quite a stranger to me — where is Bessie?"

" She is at the lodge, Aunt."

"Aunt!" she repeated. "Who calls me
Aunt? You are not one of the Gibsons ; and
yet I know you — that face, and the eyes and
forehead are quite familiar to me : you are
like — why, you are like Jane Eyre ! "

I said nothing : I was afraid of occasioning
some shock by declaring my identity.

JANE EYRE. 177

" Yet," said she, " I am afraid it is a
mistake : my thoughts deceive me. I wished
to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness
where none exists : besides in eight years she
must be so changed." I now gently assured
her that I was the person she supposed and
desired me to be ; and seeing that I was under-
stood, and that her senses were quite col-
lected, I explained how Bessie had sent her
husband to fetch me from Thornfield.

" I am very ill, I know," she said ere long ;
" I was trying to turn myself a few minutes
since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as
well I should ease my mind before I die : what
we think little of in health, burdens us at such
an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse
here ? or is there no one in the room but you ?"

I assured her we were alone.

'" Well, I have twice done you a wrong
which I regret now. One was in breaking the
promise which I gave my husband to bring

you up as my own child ; the other " she

stopped. " After all, it is of no great impor-
tance perhaps," she murmured to herself: "and
then I may get better ; and to humble myself so
to her is painful."

She made an effort to alter her position, but
failed : her face changed ; she seemed to expe-

VOL. II. N

178 JANE EYRE.

rience some inward sensation — the precursor,
perhaps, of the last pang.

" Well : I must get it over. Eternity is
"before me : I had better tell her. Go to my
dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you
will see there."

I obeyed her directions. " Read the .letter,"
she said.

It was short, and thus conceived : —

" Madam,

" Will you have the goodness to send me
the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to
tell me how she is : it is my intention to
write shortly and desire her to come to me at
Madeira. Providence has blessed my endea-
vours to secure a competency ; and as I am un-
married and childless, I wish to adopt her
during my life, and bequeath her at my death
"whatever I may have to leave."

"I am, Madam, &c. &c.

" John Eyre, Madeira."

It was dated three years back.

" Why did I never hear of this ?" I asked.

" Because I disliked you too fixedly and
thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you
to prosperity. I could not forget your con-

JANE EYRE. 179

duct to me, Jane — the fury with which you
once turned on me ; the tone in which you
declared you abhorred me the worst of any-
body in the world ; the unchildlike look and
voice with which you affirmed that the very
thought of me made you sick, and asserted
that I had treated you with miserable cruelty.
I could not forget my own sensations when
you thus started up and poured out the venom
of your mind : I felt fear, as if an animal that
I had struck or pushed had looked up at me
with human eyes and cursed me in a man's
voice. — Bring me some water ! Oh, make
haste!"

" Dear Mrs. Reed," said I, as I offered her
the draught she required, " think no more of
all this, let it pass away from your mind. For-
give me for my passionate language : I was a
child then ; eight, nine years have passed since
that day."

She heeded nothing of what I said; but
when she had tasted the water and drawn
breath, she went on thus : —

" I tell you I could not forget it ; and I took
my revenge: for you to be adopted by your
uncle and placed in a state of ease and comfort
was what I could not endure. I wrote to him ;
I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but

n 2

180 JANE EYRE.

Jane Eyre was dead : she had died of typhus
fever at Lowood. Now act as you please:
write and contradict my assertion — expose my
falsehood as soon as you like. You were born,
I think, to be my torment : my last hour is
racked by the recollection of a deed which,
but for you, I should never have been tempted
to commit."

" If you could but be persuaded to think no
more of it, aunt, and to regard me with kind-
ness and forgiveness "

" You have a very bad disposition," said
she, " and one, to this day I feel it impossible
to understand : how for nine years you could
be patient and quiescent under any treatment,
and in the tenth break out all fire and violence,
I can never comprehend."

" My disposition is not so bad as you think :
I am passionate, but not vindictive, Many a
time, as a little child, I should have been glad
to love you if you would have let me ; and I
long earnestly to be reconciled to you now :
kiss me, aunt."

I approached my cheek to her lips: she
would not touch it. She said I oppressed her
by leaning over the bed; and again demanded
water. As I laid her down — for I raised her
and supported her on my arm while she drank—

JANE EYRE. 181

I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with
mine : the feeble fingers shrank from my
touch — the glazing- eyes shunned my gaze.

" Love ine, then, or hate me, as you will,"
I said at last, " you have my full and free
forgiveness : ask now for God's ; and be at
peace."

Poor, suffering woman ! it was too late for
her to make now the effort to change her
habitual frame of mind : living, she had ever
hated me — dying, she must hate me still.

The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed.
I yet lingered half an hour longer, hoping to
see some sign of amity : but she gave none.
She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did
her mind again rallv : at twelve o'clock that
night she died. I was not present to close her
eyes ; nor were either of her daughters. They
came to tell us the next morning that all was
over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza
and I went to look at her : Georgiana, who
had burst out into loud weeping, said she
dared not go. There was stretched Sarah
Heed's once robust and active frame, rigid
and still : her eye of flint was covered with its
cold lid ; her brow and strong traits wore yet
the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange
and solemn object was that corpse to me. I

182 JANE EYRE.

gazed on it with gloom and pain : nothing
soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hope-
ful, or subduing, did it inspire ; only a grating
anguish for her woes — not my loss — and a
sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of
death in such a form.

Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a
silence of some minutes she observed : —

" With her constitution she should have
lived to a good old age : her life was short-
ened by trouble." And then a spasm con-
stricted her mouth for an instant : as it passed
away she turned and left the room, and so did
I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.

JA.NE EYRE. 183

CHAPTER VII.

Mr. Rochester had given me but one week's
leave of absence : yet a month elapsed be-
fore I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave
immediately after the funeral ; but Georgiana
entreated me to stay till she could get off to
London : whither she was now at last invited
by her uncle, Mr. Gibson; who had come
down to direct his sister's interment, and settle-
the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded
being left alone with Eliza : from her she got
neither sympathy in her dejection, support in
her fears, nor aid in her preparations ; so I
bore with her feeble-minded quailings, and sel-
fish lamentations, as well as I could, and did my
best in sewing for her and packing her dresses.
It is true, that while I worked, she would
idle ; and I thought to myself, " If you and I
were destined to live always together, cousin,
we would commence matters on a different

184 JANE EYRE.

footing. I should not settle tamely down into
being the forbearing party; I should assign
you your share of labour, and compel you to
accomplish it, or else it should be left undone :
I should insist, also, on your keeping some
of those drawling, half insincere complaints
hushed in your own breast. It is only be-
cause our connection happens to be very tran-
sitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful
season, that I consent thus to render it so
patient and compliant on my part."

At last I saw Georgiana off: but now it was
Eliza's turn to request me to stay another
week. Her plans required all her time and
attention, she said : she was about to de-
part for some unknown bourne ; and all day
long she stayed in her own room, her door
bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers,
burning papers, and holding no communica-
tion with any one. She wished me to look
after the house, to see callers, and answer
notes of condolence.

One morning she told me I was at liberty.
" And," she added, " I am obliged to you for
your valuable services and discreet conduct.
There is some difference between living with
such a one as you, and with Georgiana : you
perform your own part in life, and burden no

JANE EYRE. 185

one. To-morrow," she continued, " I set out
for the continent. I shall take up my abode
in a religious house, near Lisle — a nunnery
you would call it : there I shall be quiet and

nmolested. I shall devote myself for a time
to the examination of the Roman Catholic
dogmas, and to a careful study of the work-
ings of their system : if I find it to be, as I
half suspect it is, the one best calculated to
ensure the doing of all things decently and in
order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and
probably take the veil."

I neither expressed surprise at this reso-
lution nor attempted to dissuade her from it.
" The vocation will fit you to a hair," I thought :
" much good may it do you ! "

When we parted, she said : " Good-bye,
cousin Jane Eyre ; I wish you well : you have
some sense."

I then returned : " You are not without
sense, cousin Eliza ; but what you have, I sup-
pose in another year will be walled up alive in
a French convent. However, it is not my busi-
ness, and so it suits you — I don't much care."

" You are in the right," said she : and with
these words we each went our separate way.
As I shall not have occasion to refer either to
her or her sister againp may as well mention

186 JANE EYRE.

here, that Georgiana made an advantageous
match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion ;
and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at
this day superior of the convent where she
passed the period of her novitiate : and which
she endowed with her fortune.

How people feel when they are returning
home after an absence, long or short, I did not
know : I had never experienced the sensation.
I had known what it was to come back to
Gateshead, when a child, after a long walk — •
to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy ; and
later, what it was to come back from church
to Lowood — to long for a plenteous meal and a
good fire, and to be unable to get either.
Neither of these returnings were very pleasant
or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given
point, increasing in its strength of attraction
the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield
was yet to be tried.

My journey seemed tedious — very tedious :
fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn ;
fifty miles the next day. During the first
twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her
last moments : I saw her disfigured and dis-
coloured face, and heard her strangely altered
voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin,
the hearse, the black train of tenants and ser-

JANE EYRE. 187

vants — few was the number of relatives — the
gaping* vault, the silent church, the solemn ser-
vice. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana :
I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the
other the inmate of a convent cell ; and I dwelt
on and analyzed their separate peculiarities of
person and character. The evening arrival at

the great town of scattered these thoughts ;

night gave them quite another turn : laid down
on my traveller's bed, I left reminiscence for
anticipation.

I was going back to Thornfield : but how
long was I to stay there ? Not long : of that I
was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in
the interim of my absence : the party at the
hall was dispersed ; Mr. Rochester had left for
London three weeks ago, but he was then ex-
pected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax
surmised that he was gone to make arrange-
ments for his wedding, as he had talked of
purchasing a new carriage : she said the idea
of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed
strange to her ; but from what everybody said,
and from what she had herself seen, she could
no longer doubt that the event would shortly
take place. " You would be strangely in-
credulous if you did doubt it," was my mental
comment. " I don't doubt it."

188 JANE EYRE.

The question followed, " Where was I to
go ?" I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night :
in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing
the gates of Thornfield against me and point-
ing me out another road ; and Mr. Rochester
looked on with his arms folded — smiling sar-
donically, as it seemed, at both her and me.

I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact
day of my return ; for I did not wish either car
or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed
to walk the distance quietly by myself; and
very quietly, after leaving my box in the
ostler's care, did I slip away from the George
Inn, about six o'clock of a June evening, and
take the old road to Thornfield : a road which
lay chiefly through fields, and was now little
frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer
evening, though fair and soft : the hay-makers
were at work all along the road ; and the sky,
though far from cloudless, was such as pro-
mised well for the future : its blue— where
blue was visible — was mild and settled, and
its cloud strata high and thin. The west, too,
was warm: no watery gleam chilled it — it
seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burn-
ing behind its screen of marbled vapour, and
out of apertures shone a golden redness.

JANE EYRE. 189

I felt glad as the road shortened before me :
so glad that I stopped once to ask myself
what that joy meant; and to remind reason
that it was not to my home I was going, or to
a permanent resting-place, or to a place where
fond friends looked out for me and waited my
arrival. " Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm
welcome, to be sure," said I ; " and little
Adele will clap her hands and jump to see
you : but you know very well you are think-
ing of another than they ; and that he is not
thinking of you."

But what is so headstrong as youth ? What
so blind as inexperience ? These affirmed that
it was pleasure enough to have the privilege
of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether
he looked on me or not; and they added —
" Hasten ! hasten ! be with him while you
may : but a few more days or weeks, at most,
and you are parted from him for ever ! " And
then I strangled a new-born agony — a de-
formed thing which I could not persuade my-
self to own and rear — and ran on.

They are making hay, too, in Thornfield
meadows: or rather, the labourers are just
quitting their work, and returning home with
their rakes on their shoulders; now, at the
hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to

190 JANE EYRE.

traverse, and then I shall cross the road and
reach the gates. How full the hedges are of
roses ! But I have no time to gather any ; I
want to be at the house. I pass a tall briar,
shooting leafy and flowery branches across the
path ; I see the narrow stile with stone steps ;
and I see — Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book
and a pencil in his hand : he is writing.

Well, he is not a ghost ; yet every nerve I
have is unstrung : for a moment I am beyond
my own mastery. What does it mean? I
did not think I should tremble in this way
when I saw him — or lose my voice or the
power of motion in his presence. I will go
back as soon as 1 can stir : I need not make
an absolute fool of myself. I know another
way to the house. It does not signify if I
knew twenty ways ; for he has seen rne.

"Hillo!" he cries; and he puts up his
book and his pencil. " There you are ! Come
on, if you please."

I suppose I do come on; though in what
fashion I know not : being scarcely cognizant
of my movements, and solicitous only to appear
calm ; and, above all, to control the working
muscles of my face — which I feel rebel inso-
lently against my will, and struggle to express
what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a

JANE EYRE.

191

veil — it is down : I may make shift yet to
behave with decent composure.

" And this is Jane Eyre ? Are you coming
from Millcote, and on foot? Yes — just one of
your tricks : not to send for a carriage, and
come clattering over street and road like a
common mortal, but to steal into the vicinage
of your home along with twilight, just as if
you were a dream or a shade. What the
deuce have you done with yourself this last
month?"

" I have been with my aunt, sir, who is
dead."

" A true Janian reply ! Good angels be my
guard ! She comes from the other world —
from the abode of people who are dead ; and
tells me so when she meets me alone here in
the gloaming ! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see
if you are substance or shadow, you elf! — but
I 'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis
fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! truant!"
he added, when he had paused an instant.
" Absent from me a whole month : and forget-
ting me quite, I'll be sworn !"

I knew there would be pleasure in meeting
my master again ; even though broken by the
fear that he was so soon to cease to be my
master, and by the knowledge that I was

192 JANE EYRE.

nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr.
Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth
of the power of communicating happiness, that
to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to
stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast
genially. His last words were balm : they
seemed to imply that it imported something to
him whether I forgot him or not. And he
had spoken of Thornfield as my home — would
that it were my home !

He did not leave the stile, and I hardly
liked to ask to go by. I inquired soon if he
had not been to London.

"Yes: I suppose you found that out by
second-sight."

" Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."

" And did she inform you what I went to
do?"

" Oh, yes, sir ! Everybody knew your
errand."

" You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell
me if you don't think it will suit Mrs. Roches-
ter exactly ; and whether she won't look like
Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those
purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I were a trifle
better adapted to match with her externally.
Tell me now, fairy as you are, — can't you give

JANE EYRE. 193

me a charm, or a philter, or something of that
sort, to make me a handsome man ? "

" It would be past the power of magic, sir ;"
and, in thought, I added, " A loving eye is all
the charm needed : to such you are handsome
enough ; or rather, your sternness has a power
beyond beauty."

Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my un-
spoken thoughts with an acumen to me incom-
prehensible: in the present instance he took no
notice of my abrupt -vocal response ; but he
smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his
own, and which he used but on rare occasions.
He seemed to think it too good for common
purposes : it was the real sunshine of feeling —
he shed it over me now.

" Pass, Janet," said he, making room for
me to cross the stile : " go up home, and stay
your weary little wandering feet at a friend's
threshold."

All I had now to do was to obey him in
silence : no need for me to colloquize further.
I got over the stile without a word, and meant
to leave him calmly. An impulse held me
fast, — a force turned me round: I said — or
something in me said for me, and in spite of
me: —

" Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great

VOL. II. o

194 JANE EYRE.

kindness. I am strangely glad to get back
again to you ; and wherever you are is my
home, — my only home.*'

I walked on so fast that even he could
hardly have overtaken me had he tried.
Little Adele was half wild with delight when
she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received me with
her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled ; and
even Sophie bid me " bon soir" with glee.
This was very pleasant : there is no happiness
like that of being loved by your fellow-crea-
tures, and feeling that your presence is an
addition to their comfort.

I, that evening, shut my eyes resolutely
against the future : I stopped my ears against
the voice that kept warning me of near sepa-
ration and coming grief. When tea was over,
and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and
I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adele,
kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to
me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to
surround us with a ring of golden peace, I
uttered a silent prayer that we might not be
parted far or soon ; but when, as we thus sat,
Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and look-
ing at us, seemed to take pleasure in the
spectacle of a group so amicable — when he
said he supposed the old lady was all right now

JANE EYRE. ] 95

that she had got her adopted daughter back
again, and added that he saw Adele was
" prete a croquer sa petite maman Anglaise" —
I half ventured to hope that he would, even
after his marriage, keep us together somewhere
under the shelter of his protection, and not
quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my
return to Thorntield Hall. Nothing was said
of the master's marriage, and I saw no pre-
paration going on for such an event. Almost
every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet
heard anything decided: her answer was
always in the negative. Once, she said, she had
actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as
to when he was going to bring his bride home ;
but he had answered her only by a joke, and
one of his queer looks, and she could not tell
what to make of him.

One thing specially surprised me, and that
was, there were no journeyings backward and
forward, no visits to Ingram Park : to be sure
it was twenty miles off, on the borders of an-
other county ; but what was that distance to
an ardent lover? To so practised and inde-
fatigable a horseman as Mr. "Rochester, it
would be but a morning's ride. I began to
cherish hopes I had no right to conceive : that

o2

196 JANE EYRE.

the match was broken off; that rumour had
been mistaken ; that one or both parties had
changed their minds. I used to look at my
master's face to see if it were sad or fierce ; but
I could not remember the time when it had
been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feel-
ings. If, in the moments I and my pupil
spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into
inevitable dejection, he became even gay.
Never had he called me more frequently to his
presence ; never been kinder to me when there
— and, alas ! never had I loved him so well.

JANE EYRE. 197

CHAPTER VIII.

A splendid Midsummer shone over England :
skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen
in long succession, seldom favour, even singly,
our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of
Italian days had come from the South, like a
flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted
to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay
was all got in; the fields round Thornfield
were green and shorn;, the roads white and
baked ; the trees were in their dark prime :
hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted,
contrasted well with the sunny hue of the
cleared meadows between.

On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with
gathering wild strawberries in Hay-Lane half
the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I
watched her drop asleep, and when I left her I
sought the garden.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-

198 JANE EYRE.

four : — " Day its fervid fires had wasted," and
dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched sum-
mit. Where the sun had gone down in simple
state — pure of the pomp of clouds —spread
a solemn purple, burning with the light of red
jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one
hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft
and still softer, over half heaven. The east
had its own charm of fine, deep blue, and its
own modest gem, a rising and solitary star:
soon it would boast the moon; but she was
yet beneath the horizon.

I walked awhile on the pavement; but a
subtle, well-known scent — that of a cigar — stole
from some window; I saw the library case-
ment open a handbreadth; I knew I might
be watched thence; so I went apart into the
orchard. No nook in the grounds more shel-
tered and more Eden-like ; it was full of trees,
it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall
shut it out from the court, on one side ; on the
other, a beech avenue screened it from the
lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence ; its sole
separation from lonely fields : a winding walk,
bordered with laurels and terminating in a
giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a
seat, led down to the fence. Here one could
wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell,

JANE EYRE. 199

such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered,
I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever :
but in threading the flower and fruit-parterres
at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed
there by the light the now rising-moon casts
on this more open quarter, my step is stayed —
not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a
warning fragrance.

Sweet-briar and southern-wood, jasmine,
pink, and rose have long been yielding their
evening sacrifice of incense : this new scent is
neither of shrub nor flower ; it is — I know it
well — it is Mr. Rochester's cigar. I look
round and I listen. I see trees laden with
ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling
in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is
visible, no coming step audible ; but that per-
fume increases : I must flee. I make for the
wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see
Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the
ivy recess ; he will not stay long : he will soon
return whence he came, and if I sit still he will
never see me.

But no — eventide is as pleasant to him
as to me, and this antique garden as attractive ;
and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-
tree branches to look at the fruit, large as
plums, with which they are laden ; now taking

200 JANE EYRE.

a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping
towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale
their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads
on their petals. A great moth goes humming
by me ; it alights on a plant at Mr. Roches-
ter's foot : he sees it, and bends to examine it.

" Now, he has his back towards me," thought
I, " and he is occupied too ; perhaps, if I walk
softly, I can slip away unnoticed."

I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle
of the pebbly gravel might not betray me :
he was standing among the beds at a yard
or two distant from where I had to pass ;
the moth apparently engaged him. " I shall
get by very well," I meditated. As I crossed
his shadow, thrown long over the garden
by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly
without turning : —

" Jane, come and look at this fellow."

I had made no noise : he had not eyes
behind — could his shadow feel ? I started at
first, and then I approached him.

" Look at his wings," said he, " he re-
minds me rather of a West Indian insect ;
one does not often see so large and gay a
night-rover in England : there ! he is flown."

The moth roamed away; I was sheepishly
retreating also : but Mr. Rochester followed

JANE EYRE. 201

me, and when we reached the wicket, he
said : —

" Turn back : on so lovely a night it is
a shame to sit in the house ; and surely no
one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus
at meeting with moonrise."

It is one of my faults, that though my
tongue is sometimes prompt enough at answer,
there are times when it sadly fails me in fram-
ing an excuse ; and always the lapse occurs
at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible
pretext is specially wanted to get me out
of painful embarrassment. I did not like to
walk at this hour alone with Mr. Rochester in
the shadowy orchard ; but I could not find a
reason to allege for leaving him. I followed
with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent
on discovering a means of extrication ; but he
himself looked so composed and so grave also,
I became ashamed of feeling any confusion :
the evil — if evil existent or perspective there
was — seemed to lie with me only ; his mind
was unconscious and quiet.

" Jane," he recommenced, as we entered the
laurel-walk, and slowly strayed down in the
direction of the sunk fence and the horse-
chestnut, " Thornfield is a pleasant place in
summer, is it not?"

202 JANE EYRE.

" Yes, sir."

" You musi* have become in some degree
attached to the house, — you, who have an eye
for natural beauties, and a good deal of the
organ of Adhesiveness?"

" I am attached to it, indeed."

" And, though I don't comprehend how it
is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of
regard for that foolish little child Adele, too ;
and even for simple dame Fairfax?"

" Yes, sir ; in different ways, I have an af-
fection for both."

"And would be sorry to part with them?"

" Yes."

"Pity!" he said, and sighed and paused.
" It is always the way of events in this life,"
he continued presently : " no sooner have you
got settled in a pleasant resting-place, than
a voice calls out to you to rise and move on,
for the hour of repose is expired."

" Must I move on, sir?" I asked. " Must
I leave Thornfield ? "

"I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry
Janet, but I believe indeed you must."

This was a blow : but I did not let it pros-
trate me.

" Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order
to march comes."

JANE EYRE. 203

" It is come now — I must give it to-night."
" Then you are going to be married, sir V
" Ex-act-ly — pre-cise-ly : with your usual
acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the
head."

"Soon, sir?"

" Very soon, my that is, Miss Eyre .

and you '11 remember, Jane, the first time I, or
Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was
my intention to put my old bachelor's neck
into the sacred noose, to enter into the holy
estate of matrimony — to take Miss Ingram to
my bosom, in short, (she 's an extensive armful :
but that 's not to the point — one can't have too
much of such a very excellent thing as my
beautiful Blanche) : well, as I was saying —
listen to me Jane ! You 're not turning your
head to look after more moths, are you ? That
was only a lady-clock, child, 'flying away
home.' I wish to remind you that it was you
who first said to me with that discretion, I
respect in you — with that foresight, prudence,
and humility which befit your responsible and
dependent position — that in case I married Miss
Ingram, both you and little Adele had better
trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur
conveyed in this suggestion on the character of
my beloved ; indeed, when you are far away,

204 JANE EYRE.

Janet, I '11 try to forget it : I shall notice only-
its wisdom ; which is such that I have made it
my law of action. Adele must go to school ;
and you, Miss Eyre, must get & new situation."

" Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately : and

meantime, I suppose " I was going to

say, " I suppose I may stay here, till I find
another shelter to betake myself to :" but I
stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long
sentence, for mj voice was not quite under
command.

" In about a month I hope to be a bride-
groom," continued Mr. Rochester ; " and in
the interim, I shall myself look out for em-
ployment and an asylum for you."

" Thank you, sir ; I am sorry to give "

" Oh — no need to apologize ! I consider
that when a dependant does her duty as well
as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim
upon her employer for any little assistance he
can conveniently render her; indeed I have
already, through my future mother-in-law,
heard of a place that I think will suit : it is to
undertake the education of the five daughters
of Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge,
Connaught, Ireland. You'll like Ireland, I
think : they 're such warm-hearted people
there, they say."

JANE EYRE. 205

" It is a long way off, sir."

" No matter — a girl of your sense will not
object to the voyage or the distance."

" Not the voyage, but the distance : and then
the sea is a barrier "

" From what, Jane ? "

" From England ; and from Thornfield :
and "

"Well?"

" From you, sir."

I said this almost involuntarily ; and with as
little sanction of free will, my tears gushed
out. I did not cry so as to be heard, however ;
I avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs.
O'Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to
my heart ; and colder the thought of all the
brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush,
between me and the master, at whose side I
now walked ; and coldest at the remembrance
of the wider ocean — wealth, caste, custom in-
tervened between me and what I naturally
and inevitably loved."

" It is a long way," I again said.

" It is, to be sure ; and when you get to
Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland, I shall
never see you again, Jane : that 's morally cer-
tain. I never go over to Ireland, not having
myself much of a fancy for the country.

206 JANE EYRE.

We have been good friends, Jane, have we
not?"

" Yes, sir."

" And when friends are on the eve of sepa-
ration, they like to spend the little time that
remains to them close to each other. Come —
we '11 talk over the voyage and the parting
quietly, half an hour or so, while the stars
enter into their shining life up in heaven
yonder : here is the chestnut tree ; here is the
bench at its old roots. Come, we will sit there
in peace to-night, though we should never
more be destined to sit there together." He
seated me and himself.

" It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I
am sorry to send my little friend on such
weary travels: but if I can't do better, how
is it to be helped ? Are you anything akin to
me, do you think, Jane?"

I could risk no sort of answer by this time :
my heart was full.

" Because," he said, " I sometimes have a
queer feeling with regard to you — especially
when you are near me, as now : it is as if I
had a string somewhere under my left ribs,
tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar
string situated in the corresponding quarter
of your little frame. And if that boisterous

JANE EYRE. 207

channel, and two hundred miles or so of land
come broad between us, I am afraid that cord
of communion will be snapt ; and then I 've a
nervous notion I should take to bleeding
inwardly. As for you, — you 'd forget me."

" That I never should, sir : you know "

impossible to proceed.

" Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing
in the wood ? — Listen ! "

In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I
could repress what I endured no longer : I was
obliged to yield ; and I was shaken from head
to foot with acute distress. When I did speak,
it was only to express an impetuous wish that
I had never been born, or never come to
Thornfield.

" Because you are sorry to leave it?"

The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief
and love within me, was claiming mastery, and
struggling for full sway ; and asserting a right
to predominate : to overcome, to live, rise, and
reign at last ; yes, — and to speak.

" I grieve to leave Thornfield : I love Thorn-
field : — I love it, because I have lived in it a
full and delightful life, — momentarily at least.
I have not been trampled on. I have not been
petrified. I have not been buried with inferior
minds, and excluded from every glimpse of

208 JANE EYRE.

communion with what is bright, and energetic,
and high. I have talked, face to face, with
what I reverence; with what I delight in, —
with an original, a vigorous, an expanded
mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester;
and it strikes me with terror and anguish to
feel I absolutely must be torn from you for
ever. I see the necessity of departure ; and it
is like looking on the necessity of death."

"Where do you see the necessity?" he
asked, suddenly.

" Where ? You, sir, have placed it before
me."

"In what shape?"

" In the shape of Miss Ingram ; a noble and
beautiful woman, — your bride."

" My bride ! What bride ? I have no
bride!"

" But you will have."

« Yes ;— I will !— I will ! " He set his teeth.

" Then I must go : — you have said it
yourself."

" No : you must stay ! I swear it — and the
oath shall be kept."

" I tell you I must go ! " I retorted, roused
to something like passion. " Do you think I
can stay to become nothing to you? Do you
think I am an automaton? — a machine without

JANE EYRE. 209

feelings ? and can bear to have my morsel of
bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of
living water dashed from my cup? Do you
think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and
little, I am soulless and heartless ? — You
think wrong ! — I have as much soul as you, —
and full as much heart ! And if God had gifted
me with some beauty, and much wealth, I
should have made it as hard for you to leave
me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am
not talking to you now through the medium
of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal
flesh: — it is my spirit that addresses your
spirit ; just as if both had passed through the
grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal, — as
we are ! "

"As we are!" repeated Mr. Rochester —
" so," he added, enclosing me in his arms,
gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips
on my lips : " so, Jane !"

" Yes, so, sir," I rejoined : " and yet not
so ; for you are a married man — or as good
as a married man, and wed to one inferior
to you — to one with whom you have no sym-
pathy— whom I do not believe you truly love ;
for I have seen and heard you sneer at her.
I would scorn such a union ; therefore I am
better than you — let me go !"

VOL. II. p

210 JANE EYRE.

" Where, Jane ? To Ireland 1 "

" Yes — to Ireland. I have spoken my mind,
and can go anywhere now."

" Jane, he still ; don't struggle so, like a
wild, frantic hird that is rending its own plu-
mage in its desperation."

" I am no bird ; and no net ensnares me :
I am a free human being with an independent
will ; which I now exert to leave you."

Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood
erect before him.

*' And your will shall decide your destiny,"
he said: " I offer you my hand, my heart, and
a share of all my possessions."

" You play a farce, which I merely laugh
at."

" I ask you to pass through life at my side —
to be my second self, and best earthly com-
panion."

" For that fate you have already made your
choice, and must abide by it."

" Jane, be still a few moments ; you are
over-excited : I will be still too."

A waft of wind came sweeping down the
laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs
of the chestnut : it wandered away — away —
to an indefinite distance — it died. The night-
ingale's song was then the only voice of the

JANE EYRE. 211

hour : in listening to it, I again wept. Mr.
Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently
and seriously. Some time passed before he
spoke ; he at last said : —

" Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain
and understand one another."

" I will never again come to your side :
I am torn away now, and cannot return."

" But, Jane, I summon you as my wife : it is
you only I intend to marry."

I was silent : I thought he mocked me.

" Come, Jane — come hither."

" Your bride stands between us."

He rose, and with a stride reached me.

" My bride is here," he said, again drawing
me to him, "because my equal is here, and my
likeness. Jane, will you marry me?"

Still I did not answer ; and still I writhed
myself from his grasp : for I was still incre-
dulous.

" Do you doubt me, Jane?"

" Entirely."

" You have no faith in me 1 "

" Not a whit."

"Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked
passionately. " Little sceptic, you shall be
convinced. What love have I for Miss
Ingram ? None : and that you know. What

p 2

212 JANE EYRE.

love has she for me? None ; as I have taken
pains to prove : I caused a rumour to reach
her that my fortune was not a third of what
was supposed, and after that I presented
myself to see the result : it was coldness both
from her and her mother. I would not — I
could not — marry Miss Ingram. You — you
strange — you almost unearthly thing ! — I love
as my own flesh. You — poor and obscure, and
small and plain as you are— 1 entreat to ac-
cept me as a husband."

" What, me !" I ejaculated : beginning in his
earnestness — and especially in his incivility —
to credit his sincerity ; " me, who have not
a friend in the world but you — if you are
my friend : not a shilling but what you have
given me?"

" You, Jane. I must have you for my own
— entirely my own. Will you be mine ? Say
yes, quickly."

" Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face :
turn to the moonlight."

"Why?"

" Because I want to read your countenance :
turn!"

" There: you will find it scarcely more legibl
than a crumpled, scratched page. Read on :
only make haste, for I suffer."

JANE EYRE. 213

His face was very much agitated and very-
much flushed, and there were strong workings
in the features, and strange gleams in the
eyes.

" Oh, Jane, you torture me ! " he exclaimed.
"With that searching and yet faithful and
generous look, you torture me ! "

" How can I do that ? If you are true, and
your offer real, my only feelings to you must
be gratitude and devotion — they cannot tor-
ture."

"Gratitude!" he ejaculated; and added
wildly — " Jane, accept me quickly. Say, Ed-
ward— give me my name — Edward, I will
marry you."

" Are you in earnest ? — Do you truly love
me ? — Do you sincerely wish me to be your
wife?"

" I do ; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy
you, I swear it."

" Then, sir, I will marry you."

" Edward — my little wife ! "

" Dear Edward!"

" Come to me — come to me entirely now,"
said he ; and added, in his deepest tone, speak-
ing in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine,
" Make my happiness — I will make yours."

" God pardon me ! " he subjoined ere long ;

214 JANE EYRE.

" and man meddle not with me: I have her,
and will hold her."

" There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no
kindred to interfere."

" No — that is the best of it," he said. And
if I had loved him less I should have thought
his accent and look of exultation savage : but,
sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of
parting — called to the paradise of union — I
thought only of the bliss given me to drink in
so abundant a flow. Again and again he said,
" Are you happy, Jane ? " And again and
again I answered, " Yes." After which he
murmured, " It will atone — it will atone.
Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and
comfortless ? Will I not guard, and cherish,
and solace her? Is there not love in my
heart, and constancy in my resolves ? It will
expiate at God's tribunal. I know my Maker
sanctions what I do. For the world's judg-
ment— I wash my hands thereof. For man's
opinion — I defy it,"

But what had befallen the night? The
moon was not yet set, and we were all in
shadow : I could scarcely see my master's face,
near as I was. And what ailed the chestnut
tree ? it writhed and groaned ; while wind
roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping
over us.

JANE EYRE. 215

" We must go in," said Mr. Rochester:
" the weather changes. I could have sat with
thee till morning, Jane."

" And so," thought I," could I with you." I
should have said so, perhaps, but a livid, vivid
spark leapt out of a cloud at which I was look-
ing, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close
rattling peal ; and I thought only of hiding my
dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochester's shoulder.
The rain rushed down. He hurried me up
the walk, through the grounds, and into the
house ; but we were quite wet before we could
pass the threshold. He was taking off my
shawl in the hall, and shaking the water
out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax
emerged from her room. I did not observe
her at first, nor did Mr. Rochester. The
lamp was lit. The clock was on the stroke of
twelve.

" Hasten to take of your wet things," said
he ; " and before you go, good-night — good-
night, my darling ! "

He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked
up, on leaving his arms, there stood the widow,
pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at
her, and ran up stairs. " Explanation will do
for another time," thought I. Still, when I
reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea

216 JANE EYRE.

she should even temporarily misconstrue what
she had seen. But joy soon effaced every
other feeling; and loud as the wind blew,
near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce
and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cata-
ract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two
hours' duration, I experienced no fear, and
little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my
door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe
and tranquil : and that was comfort, that was
strength for anything.

Before I left my bed in the morning, little
Adele came running in to tell me that the
great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the or-
chard had been struck by lightning in the
night, and half of it split away.

JANE EYRE. 217

CHAPTER IX.

As I rose and dressed, I thought over what
had happened, and wondered if it were a
dream. I could not be certain of the reality
till I had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard
him renew his words of love and promise.

While arranging my hair, I looked at my
face in the glass, and felt it was no longer
plain : there was hope in its aspect, and life
in its colour ; and my eyes seemed as if they
had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed
beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often
been unwilling to look at my master, because
I feared he could not be pleased at my look ;
but I was sure I might lift my face to his now,
and not cool his affection by its expression, I
took a plain but clean and light summer dress
from my drawer and put it on : it seemed no
attire had ever so well become me; because
none had I ever worn in so blissful a mood.

218 JANE EYRE.

I was not surprised, when I ran down into
the hall, to see that a brilliant June morn-
ing had succeeded to the tempest of the night ;
and to feel, through the open glass door, the
breathing of a fresh and fragrant breeze.
Nature must be gladsome when I was so
happy. A beggar-woman and her little boy —
pale, ragged objects both — were coming up
the walk, and I ran down and gave them all
the money I happened to have in my purse —
some three or four shillings : good or bad, they
must partake of my j ubilee. The rooks cawed,
and blither birds sang; but nothing was so
merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.

Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out
of the window with a sad countenance, and
saying gravely : — " Miss Eyre, will you come
to breakfast?" During the meal she was quiet
and cool : but I could not undeceive her then.
I must wait for my master to give explanations ;
and so must she. I ate what I could, and then
I hastened up stairs. I met Adele leaving the
school-room.

" Where are you going ? It is time for les-
sons."

" Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the
nursery."

"Where is he?"

JANE EYRE. 219

" In there," pointing to the apartment
she had left; and I went in, and there he
stood.

" Come and bid me good-morning," said he.
I gladly advanced ; and it was not merely a
cold word now, or even a shake of the hand
that I received, but an embrace and a kiss. It
seemed natural : it seemed genial to be so
well-loved, so caressed by him.

" Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and
pretty," said he : " truly pretty this morning.
Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my mustard-
seed ? This little sunny-faced girl with the
dimpled cheek and rosy lips ; the satin-smooth
hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes ?" (I had
green eyes, reader ; but you must excuse the
mistake : for him they were new-dyed, I sup-
pose.)

u It is Jane Eyre, sir."

" Soon to be Jane Rochester," he added :
" in four weeks, Janet ; not a day more. Do
you hear that 1 "

I did ; and I could not quite comprehend it :
it made me giddy. The feeling, the announce-
ment sent through me, was something stronger
than was consistent with joy — something that
smote and stunned : it was, I think, almost
fear.

220 JANE EYRE.

" You blushed, and now you are white,
Jane : what is that for ? "

" Because you gave me a new name — Jane
Rochester ; and it seems so strange."

" Yes ; Mrs. Rochester," said he ; " young
Mrs. Rochester — Fairfax Rochester's girl-
bride."

" It can never be, sir : it does not sound
likely. Human beings never enjoy complete
happiness in this world. I was not born for a
different destiny to the rest of my species : to
imagine such a lot befalling me, is a fairy tale —
a day-dream."

" Which I can and will realize. I shall
begin to-day. This morning I wrote to my
banker in London to send me certain jewels
he has in his keeping, — heir-looms for the
ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope
to pour them into your lap : for every privi-
lege, every attention shall be yours, that I would
accord a peer's daughter, if about to marry
her."

" Oh, sir ! — never mind jewels ! I don't
like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane
Eyre sounds unnatural and strange : I would
rather not have them."

" I will myself put the diamond chain round
your neck, and the circlet on your forehead, —

JANE EYRE. 221

which it will become : for nature, at least, has
stamped her patent of nobility on this brow,
Jane ; and I will clasp the bracelets on these
fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers
with rings."

" No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and
speak of other things ; and in another strain.
Don't address me as if I were a beauty : I am
your plain, Quakerish governess."

"You are a beauty, in my eyes; and a
beauty just after the desire of my heart, —
delicate and aerial."

"Puny and insignificant, you mean. You
are dreaming, sir — or you are sneering. For
God's sake, don't be ironical!"

" I will make the world acknowledge you a
beauty, too," he went on, while I really
became uneasy at the strain he had adopted ;
because I felt he was either deluding himself,
or trying to delude me. " I will attire my
Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have
roses in her hair ; and I will cover the head
I love best with a priceless veil."

" And then you won't know me, sir ; and I
shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but
an ape in a harlequin's jacket, — a jay in
borrowed plumes. I would as soon see you,
Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings,

222 JANE EYRE.

as myself clad in a court-lady's robe ; and I
don't call you handsome, sir, though I love
you most dearly : far too dearly to flatter you.
Don't flatter me."

He pursued his theme, however, without
noticing my deprecation. " This very day I
shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and
you must choose some dresses for yourself. I
told you we shall be married in four weeks.
The wedding is to take place quietly, in the
church down below yonder ; and then I shall
waft you away at once to town. After a brief
stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions
nearer the sun : to French vineyards and
Italian plains ; and she shall see whatever is
famous in old story and in modern record : she
shall taste, too, of the life of cities; and she
shall learn to value herself by just comparison
with others."

" Shall I travel ? — and with you, sir ?"
"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and
Naples ; at Florence, Venice, and Vienna :
all the ground I have wandered over shall
be re-trodden by you : wherever I stamped
my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also.
Ten years since, I flew through Europe half
mad ; with disgust, hate, and rage, as my
companions : now I shall revisit it healed

JANE EYRE. 223

and cleansed, with a very angel as my com-
forter."

I laughed at him as he said this. " I am
not an angel," I asserted ; " and I will not be
one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Ro-
chester, you must neither expect nor exact
anything celestial of me, — for you will not get
it, any more than I shall get it of you ; which I
do not at all anticipate."

" What do you anticipate of me?"

" For a little while you will perhaps be as
you are now, — a very little while ; and then
you will turn cool ; and then you will be
capricious ; and then you will be stern, and I
shall have much ado to please you : but when
you get well used to me, you will perhaps like
me again, — like me, I say, not love me. I
suppose your love will effervesce in six months,
or less. I have observed in books written by
men, that period assigned as the farthest to
which a husband's ardour extends. Yet, after
all, as a friend and companion, I hope never
to become quite distasteful to my dear master."

" Distasteful ! and like you again ! I think
I shall like you again and yet again: and I
will make you confess I do not only like, but
love you — with truth, fervour, constancy."

" Yet are you not capricious, sir?"

224 JANE EYRE.

"To women who please me only by their
faces, I am the very devil when I find out they
have neither souls nor hearts — when they open
to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and
perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-tem-
per : but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue,
to the soul made of fire, and the character
that bends but does not break — at once supple
and stable, tractable and consistent — I am
ever tender and true."

" Had you ever experience of such a cha-
racter, sir ? Did you ever love such a one ?"

" I love it now."

" But before me : if I, indeed, in any respect
come up to that difficult standard ? "

" I never met your likeness, Jane : you
please me, and you master me — you seem to
submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you
impart ; and while I am twining the soft,
silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill
up my arm to my heart. I am influenced —
conquered; and the influence is sweeter than
I can express ; and the conquest I undergo has
a witchery beyond any triumph I can win.
Why do you smile, Jane? What does that
inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance
mean ? "

"I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the

JANE EYRE. 225

idea ; it was involuntary), I was thinking of
Hercules and Samson with their charmers — "

" You were, you little, elfish "

" Hush, sir ! You don't talk very wisely just
now; any more than those gentlemen acted very
wisely. However, had they been married,
they would no doubt by their severity as hus-
bands have made up for their softness as
suitors : and so will you, I fear. I wonder how
you will answer me a year hence, should I ask
a favour it does not suit your convenience or
pleasure to grant."

" Ask me something now, Janet — the least
thing : I desire to be entreated "

" Indeed, I will sir ; I have my petition all
ready."

" Speak ! But if you look up and smile
with that countenance, I shall swear concession
before I know to what, and that will make a
fool of me."

" Not at all, sir ; I ask only this : don't send
for the jewels, and don't crown me with roses :
you might as well put a border of gold lace
round that plain pocket handkerchief you have
there."

" I might as well ' gild refined gold.' I
know it : your request is granted then — for the
time. I will remand the order I despatched

VOL. II. Q

226 JANE EYRE.

to my banker. But you have not yet asked for
anything ; you have prayed a gift to be with-
drawn : try again."

" Well, then, sir ; have the goodness to gra-
tify my curiosity, which is much piqued on one
point."

He looked disturbed. "What? what?" he
said hastily. " Curiosity is a dangerous peti-
tioner : it is well I have not taken a vow to
accord every request "

" But there can be no danger in complying
with this, sir."

" Utter it, Jane : but I wish that instead of
a mere inquiry into, perhaps, a secret, it was a
wish for half my estate."

" Now, king Ahasuerus ! What do I want
with half your estate ? Do you think I am a
Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land ?
I would much rather have all your confidence.
You will not exclude me from your confidence,
if you admit me to your heart?"

" You are welcome to all of my confidence
that is worth having, Jane : but for God's sake,
don't desire a useless burden ! Don't long
for poison — don't turn out a downright Eve on
my hands!"

" Why not, sir ? You have just been telling

JANE EYRE. 227

me how much you like to be conquered, and,
how pleasant overpersuasion is to you. Don't
you think I had better take advantage of the
confession, and begin and coax, and entreat —
even cry and be sulky if necessary — for the
sake of a mere essay of my power?"

" I dare you to any such experiment. En-
croach, presume, and the game is up."

"Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern
you look now ! Your eyebrows have become
as thick as my finger, and your forehead re-
sembles, wThat, in some very astonishing poetry,
I once saw styled , ' a blue-piled thunder-loft.'
That will be your married look, sir, I sup-
pose?"

" If that will be your married look, I, as a
Christian, will soon give up the notion of con-
sorting with a mere sprite or salamander.
But what had you to ask, thing? — out with
it!"

" There, you are less than civil now ; and I
like rudeness a great deal better than flattery.
I had rather be a thing than an angel. This
is what I have to ask, — Why did you take
such pains to make me believe you wished to
marry Miss Ingram ? "

" Is that all? Thank God, it is no worse !"
And now he unknit his black brows ; looked

q2

228 JANE EYRE.

down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as
if well pleased at seeing a danger averted.
" I think I may confess," he continued, " even
although I should make you a little indignant,
Jane — and I have seen what a fire-spirit you
can be when you are indignant. You glowed
in the cool moonlight last night, when you
mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank
as my equal. Janet, by-the-by, it was you
who made me the offer."

" Of course I did. But to the point if you
please, sir — Miss Ingram ? "

" Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram,
because I wished to render you as madly in
love with me as I was with you ; and I knew
jealousy would be the best ally I could call in
for the furtherance of that end."

" Excellent ! Now you are small — not one
whit bigger than the end of my little finger.
It was a burning shame, and a scandalous dis-
grace to act in that way. Did you think
nothing of Miss Ingram's feelings, sir?"

" Her feelings are concentrated in one —
pride; and that needs humbling. Were you
jealous, Jane?"

" Never mind, Mr. Rochester : it is in no
way interesting to you to know that. An-
swer me truly once more. Do you think

JANE EYRE. 229

Miss Ingram will not suffer from your dis-
honest coquetry? "Won't she feel forsaken
and deserted?"

" Impossible ! — when I told you how she,
on the contrary, deserted me : the idea of my
insolvency, cooled, or rather extinguished, her
liame in a moment."

" You have a curious designing mind, Mr.
Rochester. I am afraid your principles on
some points are eccentric."

" My principles were never trained, Jane:
they may have grown a little awry for want of
attention."

" Once again, seriously ; may I enjoy the
great good that has been vouchsafed to me,
without fearing that any one else is suffer-
ing the bitter pain I myself felt a while
ago?"

" That you may, my good little girl : there
is not another being in the world has the same
pure love for me as yourself — for I lay that
pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in
your affection."

I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my
shoulder. I loved him very much — more than
I could trust myself to say — more than words
had power to express.

" Ask something more," he said presently ;

330 JANE EYRE.

" it is my delight to be entreated, and to
yield."

I was again ready with my request.
" Communicate your intentions to Mrs. Fair-
fax, sir: she saw me with you last night in
the hall, and she was shocked. Give her some
explanation before I see her again. It pains
me to be misjudged by so good a woman."

" Go to your room, and put on your bon-
net," he replied. " I mean you to accompany
me to Millcote this morning; and while you
prepare for the drive, I will enlighten the old
lady's understanding. Did she think, Janet,
you had given the world for love, and consi-
dered it well lost?"

" I believe she thought I had forgotten my
station ; and yours, sir."

" Station ! station ! — your station is in my
heart, and on the necks of those who would
insult you, now or hereafter. — Go."

I was soon dressed ; and when I heard Mr.
Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax's parlour, I hur-
ried down to it. The old lady had been read-
ing her morning portion of Scripture — the
lesson for the day : her Bible lay open before
her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her
occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester's
announcement, seemed now forgotten : her

JANE EYRE. 231

eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, ex-
pressed the surprise of a quiet mind, stirred by
unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused
herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and
framed a few words of congratulation ; but the
smile expired, and the sentence was aban-
doned unfinished. She put up her spectacles,
shut the Bible, and pushed her chair back
from the table.

" I feel so astonished," she began, " I hardly
know what to say to you, Miss Eyre. I have
surely not been dreaming, have 1 1 Some-
times I half fall asleep when I am sitting
alone, and fancy things that have never hap-
pened. It has seemed to me more than once,
when I have been in a doze, that my dear
husband, who died fifteen years since, has
come in and sat down beside me ; and that I
have even heard him call me by my name,
Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell
me whether it is actually true that Mr.
Rochester has asked you to marry him ?
Don't laugh at me. But I really thought he
came in here fiYe minutes ago, and said, that
in a month you would be his wife."

" He has said the same thing to me," I
replied.

232 JANE EYRE.

"He has! Do you believe him? Have
you accepted him ?"

"Yes."

She looked at me bewildered.

"I could never have thought it. He is a
proud man : all the Rochesters were proud :
and his father, at least, liked money. He, too,
has always been called careful. He means to
marry you ? "

" He tells me so."

She surveyed my whole person : in her eyes
I read that they had there found no charm
powerful enough to solve the enigma.

"It passes me!" she continued: "but no
doubt it is true, since you say so. How it will
answer, I cannot tell : I really don't know.
Equality of position and fortune is often ad-
visable in such cases; and there are twenty
years of difference in your ages. He might
almost be your father."

"No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!" exclaimed I,
nettled ; " he is nothing like my father ! No
one, who saw us together, would suppose it
for an instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young,
and is as young as some men at five-and-
twenty."

" Is it really for love he is going to marry
you?" she asked.

JANE EYRE. 233

I was so hurt by her coldness and scepti-
cism, that the tears rose to my eyes.

"I am sorry to grieve you," pursued the
widow ; " but you are so young, and so little
acquainted with men, I wished to put you on
your guard. It is an old saying that * all is
not gold that glitters ;' and in this case I do
fear there will be something found to be
different to what either you or I expect."

" Why ?— am I a monster ?" I said : " is it
impossible that Mr. Rochester should have
a sincere affection for me?"

" No : you are very well ; and much im-
proved of late ; and Mr. Rochester, I dare-
say, is fond of you. I have always noticed
that you were a sort of pet of his. There
are times when, for your sake, I have been a
little uneasy at his marked preference, and
have wished to put you on your guard : but I
did not like to suggest even the possibility of
wrong. I knew such an idea would shock,
perhaps offend you ; and you were so discreet,
and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped
you might be trusted to protect yourself. Last
night I cannot tell you what I suffered when I
sought all over the house, and could find
you nowhere, nor the master either ■ and then,
at twelve o'clock, saw you come in with him."

234 JANE EYRE.

" Well, never mind that now," I inter-
rupted, impatiently: "it is enough that all
was right."

" I hope all will be right in the end," she
said : " but, believe me, you cannot be too
careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a
distance: distrust yourself as well as him.
Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed
to marry their governesses."

I was growing truly irritated : happily,
Adele ran in.

" Let me go, — let me go to Millcote, too ! "
she cried. " Mr. Rochester won't ; though
there is so much room in the new carriage.
Beg him to let me go, mademoiselle."

" That I will, Adele ;" and I hastened away
with her, glad to quit my gloomy monitress.
The carriage was ready : they were bringing it
round to the front, and my master was pacing
the pavement, Pilot following him backwards
and forwards.

"Adele may accompany us, may she not,
sir?"

" I told her no. I '11 have no brats ! — I '11
have only you."

" Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you
please : it would be better."

" Not it : she will be a restraint."

JANE EYRE. 235

He was quite peremptory, both in look and
voice. The chill of Mrs. Fairfax's warnings,
and the damp of her doubts, were upon me :
something of unsubstantially and uncertainty
had beset my hopes. I half lost the sense of
power over him. I was about mechanically to
obey him, without further remonstrance ; but
as he helped me into the carriage, he looked
at my face.

" What is the matter ?" he asked ; " all the
sunshine is gone. Do you really wish the
bairn to go ? Will it annoy you if she is left
behind?"

" I would far rather she went, sir."

w Then off for your bonnet, and back, like a
flash of lightning ! " cried he to Adele.

She obeyed him with what speed she
might.

"After all, a single morning's interruption
will not matter much," said he, " when I mean
shortly to claim you — your thoughts, conversa-
tion, and company— for life."

Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing
me, by way of expressing her gratitude for
my intercession: she was instantly stowed
away into a corner on the other side of
him. She then peeped round to where I sat ;
so stern a neighbour was too restrictive : to

236 JANE EYRE.

him, In his present fractious mood, she dared
whisper no observations, nor ask of him any
information.

" Let her come to me," I entreated ; " she
will, perhaps, trouble you, sir : there is plenty
of room on this side."

He handed her over as if she had been
a lap-dog : " I'll send her to school yet," he
said, but now he was smiling.

Adele heard him, and asked if she was
to go to school "sans mademoiselle?"

"Yes," he replied, " absolutely sans made-
moiselle ; for I am to take mademoiselle to
the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one
of the white valleys among the volcano-tops,
and mademoiselle shall live with me there,
and only me."

" She will have nothing to eat : you will
starve her," observed Adele.

" I shall gather manna for her morning
and night : the plains and hill-sides in the
moon are bleached with manna, Adele."

" She will want to warm herself; what will
she do for a fire?"

" Fire rises out of the lunar mountains :
when she is cold, I'll carry her up to a peak
and lay her down on the edge of a crater."

" Oh, qu'elle y sera mal — peu comfortable !

JANE EYRE. 237

And her clothes, they will wear out : how can
she get new ones?"

Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled.
" Hem !" said he. " What would you do,
Adele ? Cudgel your brains for an expedient.
How would a white or a pink cloud answer
for a gown, do you think? And one could
cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow."

" She is far better as she is," concluded
Adele, after musing some time : " besides, she
would get tired of living with only you in the
moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never
consent to go with you."

" She has consented : she has pledged her
word."

" But you can't get her there : there is
no road to the moon : it is all air ; and neither
you nor she can fly."

" Adele, look at that field ." We were now
outside Thornfield gates, and bowling lightly
along the smooth road to Millcote, where the
dust was well laid by the thunder-storm, and
where the low hedges and lofty timber trees
on each side glistened green, and rain-re-
freshed.

" In that field, Adele, I was walking late
one evening about a fortnight since — the even-
ing of the day you helped me to make hay

238 JANE EYRE.

in the orchard meadows ; and as I was tired
with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me
on a stile ; and there I took out a little book
and a pencil, and began to write about a mis-
fortune that befell me long ago, and a wish
I had for happy days to come : I was writing
away very fast, though daylight was fading
from the leaf, when something came up the
path and stopped two yards off me. I looked
at it. It was a little thing with a veil of gos-
samer on its head. I beckoned it to come
near me : it stood soon at my knee. I never
spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words :
but I read its eyes, and it read mine ; and our
speechless colloquy was to this effect : —

" It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it
said ; and its errand was to make me happy :
I must go with it out of the common world
to a lonely place — such as the moon, for in-
stance— and it nodded its head towards her
horn, rising over Hay-hill : it told me of the
alabaster cave and silver vale where we might
live. I said I should like to go ; but re-
minded it, as you did me, that I had no
wings to fly.

" c Oh,* returned the fairy, ' that does not
signify! Here is a talisman will remove all
difficulties;' and she held out a pretty gold

JANE EYRE. 239

ring. ' Put it,' she said, ' on the fourth finger
of my left hand, and I am yours, and you
are mine ; and we shall leave earth, and make
our own heaven yonder.' She nodded again
at the moon. The ring, Adele, is in my
breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a so-
vereign : but I mean soon to change it to
a ring again."

" But what has mademoiselle to do with
it ? I don't care for the fairy : you said it
was mademoiselle you would take to the
moon ?"

" Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering
mysteriously. Whereupon I told her not to
mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced
a fund of genuine French scepticism : denomi-
nating Mr. Rochester " un vrai menteur," and
assuring him that she made no account whatever
of his " Contes de fee," and that " du reste, il
n'y avait pas de fees, et quand meme il y en
avait : " she was sure they would never appear
to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live
with him in the moon.

The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat
harassing one to me. Mr. Rochester obliged
me to go to a certain silk warehouse : there I
was ordered to choose half a dozen dresses. I
hated the business, I begged leave to defer it :

240 JANE EYRE.

no — it should be gone through with now. By-
dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whis-
pers, I reduced the half-dozen to two : these,
however, he vowed he would select himself.
With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the
gay stores : he fixed on a rich silk of the most
brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin.
I told him in a new series of whispers, that he
might as well buy me a gold gown and a silver
bonnet at once : I should certainly never ven-
ture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty,
(for he was stubborn as a stone) I persuaded
him to make an exchange in favour of a sober
black satin and pearl-grey silk. " It might
pass for the present," he said ; " but he would
yet see me glittering like a parterre."

Glad was I to get him out of the silk ware-
house, and then out of a jeweller's shop : the
more he bought me, the more my cheek
burned with a sense of annoyance and degra-
dation. As we re-entered the carriage, and I
sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered
what in the hurry of events, dark and bright,
I had wholly forgotten — the letter of my
uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Heed : his intention
to adopt me and make me his testatrix. " It
would, indeed, be a relief," I thought, " if I
had ever so small an independency ; I never

JANE EYRE. 24l

can bear being* dressed like a doll by Mr.
Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae with
the golden shower falling daily round me. I
will write to Madeira the moment I get home,
and tell my uncle John I am going to be
married, and to whom : if I had but a prospect
of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an acces-
sion of fortune, I could better endure to be
kept by him now." And somewhat relieved
by this idea (which I failed not to execute
that day), I ventured once more to meet my
master's and lover's eye; which most perti-
naciously sought mine, though I averted both
face and gaze. He smiled ; and I thought his
smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful
and fond moment, bestow on a slave his gold
and gems had enriched : I crushed his hand,
which was ever hunting mine, vigorously, and
thrust it back to him red with the passionate
pressure

"You need not look in that way," I said:
"if you do, I '11 wear nothing but my old
Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I '11 be
married in this lilac gingham — you may make
a dressing-gown for yourself out of the pearl-
grey silk, and an infinite series of waistcoats
out of the black satin."

He chuckled ; he rubbed his bands : " Oh,

VOL. II. R

242 JANE EYRE*

it is rich to see and hear her ! " he exclaimed.
*' Is she original ? Is she piquant ? I would
not exchange this one little English girl for
the grand Turk's whole seraglio ; gazelle-eyes,
houri forms and all ! "

The eastern allusion bit me again : " I '11 not
stand you an inch in the stead of a seraglio," I
said ; " so don't consider me an equivalent for
one: if you have a fancy for anything in that
line, away with you, sir, to the bazars of Stam-
boul without delay ; and lay out in extensive
slave-purchases some of that spare cash you
seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here."

" And what will you do, Janet, while I am
bargaining for so many tons of flesh and such
an assortment of black eyes ?"

" I '11 be preparing myself to go out as a
missionary to preach liberty to them that are
enslaved — your Harem inmates amongst the
rest. I '11 get admitted there, and I '11 stir up
mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as you
are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered
amongst our hands : nor will I, for one, con-
sent to cut your bonds till you have signed a
charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet
conferred."

" I would consent to be at your mercyy
Jane."

JANE EYRE. 243

" I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if
you supplicated for it with an eye like that.
While you looked so, I should be certain that
whatever charter you might grant under
coercion, your first act, when released, would
be to violate its conditions."

« Why, Jane, what would you have? I
fear you will compel me to go through a pri-
vate marriage ceremony, besides that per-
formed at the altar. You will stipulate, I
see, for peculiar terms — what will they
be?"

" I only want an easy mind, sir ; not
crushed by crowded obligations. Do you
remember what you said of Celine Varens ? —
of the diamonds, the cashmeres you gave her ?
I will not be your English Celine Varens. I
shall continue to act as Adele's governess : by
that I shall earn my board and lodging, and
thirty pounds a year besides. I '11 furnish my
own wardrobe out of that money, and you
shall give me nothing, but — "

"Well, but what?"

" Your regard : and if I give you mine in
return, that debt will be quit."

" Well, for cool native impudence, and pure
innate pride, you havn't your equal," said he.
We were now approaching Thornfield. " Will

r 2

244 JANE EYRE.

it please you to dine with me to-day?" he
asked, as we re-entered the gates.

" "No, thank you, sir."

" And what for, * no, thank you' ? if one may
inquire."

" I never have dined with you, sir ; and I
see no reason why I should now : till — "

" Till what ? You delight in half phrases."

" Till I can't help it."

" Do you suppose I eat like an ogre, or a
ghoul, that you dread being the companion
of my repast?"

" I have formed no suppositions on the sub-
ject, sir: but I want to go on as usual for
another month."

" You will give up your governessing
slavery at once."

" Indeed ! begging your pardon, sir, I shall
not. I shall just go on with it as usual. I
shall keep out of your way all day, as I have
been accustomed to do: you may send for
me in the evening, when you feel disposed to
see me, and I '11 come then ; but at no other
time."

" I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff,
to comfort me under all this ' pour me donner
une contenance,' as Adele would say ; and un-
fortunately I have neither my cigar-case, nor

JANE EYRE. 245

my snuff-box. But listen — whisper — it is your
time now, little tyrant, but it will be mine
presently ; and when once I have fairly seized
you, to have and to hold, I'll just — figuratively
speaking — attach you to a chain like this
(touching his watch-guard). Yes, bonny wee
thing, I '11 wear you in my bosom, lest my
jewel I should tyne."

He said this as he helped me to alight from
the carriage; and while he afterwards lifted
out Adele, I entered the house, and made
good my retreat up stairs.

He duly summoned me to his presence in
the evening. I had prepared an occupation
for him ; for I was determined not to spend
the whole time in a tete-a-tete conversation:
I remembered his fine voice; I knew he
liked to sing — good singers generally do.
I was no vocalist myself, and in his fasti-
dious judgment, no musician, either ; but I
delighted in listening when the performance
was good. No sooner had twilight, that hour
of romance, begun to lower her blue and starry
banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened
the piano, and entreated him, for the love of
heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a
capricious witch, and that he would rather

246 JANE EYRE.

sing another time ; but I averred that no time
was like the present.

" Did I like his voice?" he asked.

" Very much." I was not fond of pamper-
ing that susceptible vanity of his ; but for once,
and from motives of expediency, I would e'en
soothe and stimulate it.

" Then, Jane, you must play the accom-
paniment."

" Very well, sir, I will try."

I did try, but was presently swept off the
stool and denominated, "a little bungler."
Being pushed unceremoniously to one side —
which was precisely what I wished — he usurped
my place, and proceeded to accompany him-
self; for he could play as well as sing. I hied
me to the window-recess; and while I sat there
and looked out on the still trees and dim
lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones,
the following strain : —

The truest love that ever heart

Felt at its kindled core
Did through each vein, in quickened start,

The tide of being pour.

Her coming was my hope each day,

Her parting was my pain ;
The chance that did her steps delay,

Was ice in every vein.

JANE EYRE. 247

I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,

As I loved, loved to be ;
And to this object did I press j

As blind as eagerly.

But wide as pathless was the space

That lay, our lives, between,
And dangerous as the foamy race

Of ocean-surges green.

And haunted as a robber-path

Through wilderness or wood ;
For Might and Right, and "Woe and "Wrath,

Between our spirits stood.

I dangers dared ; I hindrance scorned ;

I omens did defy :
Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,

I passed impetuous by.

On sped my rainbow, fast as light ;

I flew as in a dream ;
Far glorious rose upon my sight

That child of Shower and Gleam.

Still bright on clouds of suffering dim

Shines that soft, solemn joy ;
Nor care I now, how dense and grim

Disasters gather nigh :

I care not in this moment sweet,

Though all I have rushed o'er
Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,

Proclaiming vengeance sore :

248 JANE EYRE.

Though haughty Hate should strike me down,

Right, bar approach to me,
And grinding Might, with furious frown,

Swear endless enmity.

My Love has placed her little hand

With noble faith in mine,
And vowed that wedlock's sacred band

Our natures shall entwine.

My Love has sworn, with sealing kiss,

With me to live — to die j
I have at last my nameless bliss :

As I love— loved am I !

He rose and came towards me, and I saw
his face all kindled, and his full falcon-eye
flashing, and tenderness and passion in every
lineament. I quailed momentarily — then I
rallied. Soft scene, daring demonstration, I
would not have ; and I stood in peril of both :
a weapon of defence must be prepared — I
whetted my tongue : as he reached me, I
asked with asperity, " whom he was going to
marry now?"

" That was a strange question to be put by
his darling Jane."

" Indeed ! I considered it a very natural
and necessary one : he had talked of his future
wife dying with him. What did he mean by

JANE EYRE. 249

such a pagan idea ? / had no intention of
dying with him — he might depend on that."

" Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was
that I might live with him ! Death was not
for such as I."

" Indeed it was : I had as good a right to
die when my time came as he had: but I
should bide that time, and not be hurried away
in a suttee."

" Would I forgive him for the selfish idea,
and prove my pardon by a reconciling kiss V*

" No : I would rather be excused."

Here I heard myself apostrophized as a
" hard little thing ;" and it was added, " any
other woman would have been melted to mar-
row at hearing such stanzas crooned in her
praise."

I assured him I was naturally hard — very
flinty, and that he would often find me so ; and
that, moreover, I was determined to show him
divers rugged points in my character before
the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he should
know fully what sort of a bargain he had made,
while there was yet time to rescind it.

"Would I be quiet, and talk rationally?"

" I would be quiet if he liked ; and as to talk-
ing rationally, I flattered myself I was doing
that now."

250 JANE EYRE.

He fretted, pished and pshawed. "Very-
good," I thought ; " you may fume and fidget
as you please : but this is the best plan to
pursue with you, I am certain. I like you
more than I can say ; but I '11 not sink into a
bathos of sentiment : and with this needle of
repartee I '11 keep you from the edge of the
gulph too ; and, moreover, maintain by its
pungent aid that distance between you and
myself most conducive to our real mutual ad-
vantage."

From less to more, I worked him up to con-
siderable irritation ; then, after he had retired,
in dudgeon, quite to the other end of the room,
I got up, and saying, " I wish you good-
night, sir," in my natural and" wonted respect-
ful manner, I slipped out by the side-door and
got away.

The system thus entered on, I pursued
during the whole season of probation ; and
with the best success. He was kept, to be
sure, rather cross and crusty : but on the whole
I could see he was excellently entertained; and
that a lamb-like submission and turtle-dove
sensibility, while fostering his despotism more,
would have pleased his judgment, satisfied his
common-sense, and even suited his taste, less.
In other people's presence I was, as formerly,

JANE EYRE. 251

deferential and quiet ; any other line of conduct
being uncalled-for : it was only in the evening
conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him.
He continued to send for me punctually the
moment the clock struck seven ; though when
I appeared before him now, he had no such
honeyed terms as " love" and " darling" on
his lips : the best words at my service were
" provoking puppet," " malicious elf," " sprite,"
" changeling," &c. For caresses too, I now got
grimaces ; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch
on the arm : for a kiss on the cheek, a severe
tweak of the ear. It was all right : at present
I decidedly preferred these fierce favours to
anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw
approved me : her anxiety on my account
vanished ; therefore I was certain I did well.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wear-
ing him to skin and bone, and threatened
awful vengeance for my present conduct at
some period fast coming. I laughed in my
sleeve at his menaces : " I can keep you in
reasonable check now," I reflected ; " and I
don't doubt to be able to do it hereafter : if
one expedient loses its virtue, another must be
devised."

Yet after all my task was not an easy one :
often I would rather have pleased than teased

252 JANE EYRE.

him. My future husband was becoming to
me my whole world ; and, more than the world :
almost my hope of heaven. He stood between
me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse
intervenes between man and the broad sun. I
could not, in those days, see God for his crea-
ture : of whom I had made an idol.

JANE EYRE. 253

CHAPTER X.

The month of courtship had wasted : its very-
last hours were being numbered. There was
no putting off the day that advanced — the
bridal day ; and all preparations for its arrival
were complete. J, at least, had nothing more
to do : there were my trunks, packed, locked,
corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my
little chamber ; to-morrow, at this time, they
would be far on their road to London : and so
should I (D. V.), — or rather, not I, but one
Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I knew
not. The cards of address alone remained to nail
on : they lay, four little squares, on the drawer.
Mr. Rochester had himself written the direction,
"Mrs. Rochester, — Hotel, London," on each:
I could not persuade myself to affix them, or
to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester ! She

254 JANE EYRE.

did not exist : she would not be born till
to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock a. m. ;
and I would wait to be assured she had come
into the world alive, before I assigned to her
all that property. It was enough that in
yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, gar-
ments said to be hers had already displaced
my black stuff Lowood frock and straw
bonnet : for not to me appertained that suit of
wedding raiment ; the pearl-coloured robe, the
vapoury veil, pendent from the usurped port-
manteau. I shut the closet, to conceal the
strange, wraith -like apparel it contained ;
which, at this evening hour — nine o'clock —
gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer
through the shadow of my apartment. " I
will leave you by yourself, white dream," I
said. " I am feverish : I hear the wind blow-
ing ; I will go out of doors and feel it."

It was not only the hurry of preparation
that made me feverish ; not only the anticipa-
tion of the great change — the new life which
was to commence to-morrow ; both these
circumstances had their share, doubtless, in
producing that restless, excited mood which

JANE EYRE. 255

hurried me fortli at this late hour into the
darkening- grounds; but a third cause influ-
enced my mind more than they.

I had at heart a strange and anxious thought.
Something had happened which I could not
comprehend ; no one knew of or had seen the
event but myself: it had taken place the
preceding night. Mr. Rochester that night
was absent from home; nor was he yet re-
turned: business had called him to a small
estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty
miles off — business it was requisite he should
settle in person, previously to his meditated
departure from England. I waited now his
return ; eager to disburthen my mind, and to
seek of him the solution of the enigma that
perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader;
and, when I disclose my secret to him, you
shall share the confidence.

I sought the orchard : driven to its shelter
by the wind, which all day had blown strong
and full from the south ; without, however,
bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding
as night drew on, it seemed to augment its
rush and deepen its roar : the trees blew

256 JANE EYRE.

stedfastly one way, never writhing round, and
scarcely tossing back their boughs once in an
hour ; so continuous was the strain bending
their branchy heads northward — the clouds
drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass
on mass : no glimpse of blue sky had been
visible that July day.

It was not without a certain wild pleasure I
ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of
mind to the measureless air- torrent thundering
through space. Descending the laurel-walk,
I faced the wreck of the chestnut tree ; it
stood up, black and riven : the trunk, split
down the centre, gaped ghastly. The cloven
halves were not broken from each other, for
the firm base and strong roots kept them un-
sundered below ; though community of vitality
was destroyed — the sap could flow no more :
their great boughs on each side were dead,
and next winter's tempests would be sure to
fell one or both to earth : as yet, however, they
might be said to form one tree — a ruin ; but an
entire ruin.

" You did right to hold fast to each other,"
I said : as if the monster-splinters were living

JANE EYRE. 257

things, and could hear me. " I think, scathed
as you look, and charred and scorched, there
must be a little sense of life in you yet ; rising
out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest
roots : you will never have green leaves more —
never more see birds making nests and singing-
idyls in your boughs ; the time of pleasure
and love is over with you; but you are not
desolate : each of you has a comrade to sym-
pathize with him in his decay." As I looked
up at them, the moon appeared momentarily
in that part of the sky which filled their fis-
sure ; her disk was blood-red and half over-
cast: she seemed to throw on me one be-
wildered, dreary glance, and buried herself
again instantly in the deep drift of cloud.
The wind fell, for a second, round Thorn-
field; but far away, over wood and water,
poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad
to listen to, and I ran off again.

Here and there I strayed through the or-
chard, gathering up the apples with which the
grass round the tree roots was thickly strown :
then I employed myself in dividing the ripe
from the unripe ; I carried them into the house

VOL. II. S

258 JANE EYRE.

and put them away in the store-room. Then
I repaired to the library to ascertain whether
the fire was lit ; for, though summer, I knew,
on such a gloomy evening, Mr. Rochester
would like to see a cheerful hearth when he
came in : yes, the fire had been kindled some
time, and burnt well. I placed his arm-chair by
the chimney-corner : I wheeled the table near
it : I let down the curtain, and had the candles
brought in ready for lighting. More restless
than ever, when I had completed these arrange-
ments I could not sit still, nor even remain in the
house : a little time-piece in the room and the
old clock in the hall simultaneously struck
ten.

" How late it grows ! " I said : " I will run
down to the gates: it is moonlight at in-
tervals ; L can see a good way on the road.
He may be coming now, and to meet him will
save some minutes of suspense."

The wind roared high in the great trees
which embowered the gates ; but the road as far
as I could see, to the right hand and the left,
was all still and solitary : save for the shadows
of clouds crossing it at intervals, as the moon

JANE EYRE. 259

looked out, it was but a long pale line, un-
varied by one moving speck.

A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I
looked — a tear of disappointment and im-
patience : ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I
lingered ; the moon shut herself wholly within
her chamber, and drew close her curtain of
dense cloud : the night grew dark ; rain came
driving fast on the gale.

" I wish he would come ! I wish he would
come ! " I exclaimed, seized with hypochon-
driac foreboding. I had expected his arrival
before tea ; now it was dark : what could keep
him ? Had an accident happened ? The event
of last night again recurred to me. I inter-
preted it as a warning of disaster. I feared my
hopes were too bright to be realized ; and I
had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I ima-
gined my fortune had passed its meridian,
and must now decline.

"Well, I cannot return to the house," I
thought ; " I cannot sit by the fireside, while
he is abroad in inclement weather : better tire
my limbs than strain my heart; I will go
forward and meet him."

s 2

260 JANE EYRE.

I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere
I had measured a quarter of a mile, I heard
the tramp of hoofs ; a horseman came on,
full gallop, a dog ran by his side. Away with
evil presentiment ! It was he : here he was,
mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He
saw me ; for the moon had opened a blue
field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright :
he took his hat off and waved it round his
head. I now ran to meet him.

" There !" he exclaimed, as he stretched out
his hand and bent from the saddle: "You
can't do without me, that is evident. Step
on my boot -toe ; give me both hands :
mount!"

I obeyed ; joy made me agile : I sprang up
before him. A hearty kissing I got for a
welcome : and some boastful triumph ; which
I swallowed as well as I could. He checked
himself in his exultation to demand, " But
is there anything the matter, Janet, that you
come to meet me at such an hour ? Is there
anything wrong ?"

" No ; but I thought you would never come.

JANE EYRE. 261

I could not bear to wait in the house for you :
especially with this rain and wind."

" Rain and wind indeed ! Yes, you are
dripping like a mermaid; pull my cloak round
you : but I think you are feverish, Jane ; both
your cheek and hand are burning hot. I ask
again, is there anything the matter?"

" Nothing, now : I am neither afraid nor
unhappy."

"Then you have been both?"

" Rather : but I '11 tell you all about it by-
and-by, sir ; and I daresay you will only laugh
at me for my pains."

" I '11 laugh at you heartily when to-morrow
is past ; till then I dare not : my prize is not
certain. This is you ; who have been as slip-
pery as an eel this last month, and as thorny
as a briar-rose? I could not lay a finger
anywhere but I was pricked ; and now I seem
to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms :
you wandered out of the fold to seek your
shepherd, did you, Jane ? "

" I wanted you : but don't boast. Here we
are at Thornfield : now let me get down."

He landed me on the pavement. As John

262 JANE EYRE.

took liis horse, and he followed me into the hall,
he told me to make haste and put something
dry on, and then to return to him in the
library ; and he stopped me, as I made for the
staircase, to extort a promise that I would not
be long : nor was I long ; in five minutes I
rejoined him. I found him at supper.

" Take a seat, and bear me company, Jane :
please God, it is the last meal but one you will
eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time."

I sat down near him ; but told him I could
not eat.

" Is it because you have the prospect of a
journey before you, Jane ? Is it the thoughts
of going to London that takes away your
appetite ? "

" I cannot see my prospects clearly to-
night, sir ; and I hardly know what thoughts
I have in my head. Everything in life seems
unreal.,'

"Except me: I am substantial enough: —
touch me."

" You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all :
you are a mere dream."

He held out his hand, laughing : " Is that a

JANE EYRE. 263

dream?" said he, placing it close to my eyes.
He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous
hand, as well as a long, strong arm.

" Yes ; though I touch it, it is a dream,'*
said I, as I put it down from before my face.
" Sir, have you finished supper 1 "

"Yes, Jane."

I rang the bell, and ordered away the tray.
When we were again alone, I stirred the fire,
and then took a low seat at my master's
knee.

" It is near midnight," I said.

"Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised
to wake with me the night before my wedding."

" I did ; and I will keep my promise, for an
hour or two at least : I have no wish to go
to bed."

" Are all your arrangements complete?'*

"All, sir."

"And on my part, likewise," he returned.
" I have settled everything ; and we shall leave
Thornfield to-morrow, within half an hour after
our return from church."

" Very well, sir."

"With what an extraordinary smile you

264 JANE EYRE.

uttered that word, — ' very well,' Jane ! What
a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek !
and how strangely your eyes glitter ! Are you
well?"

" I believe I am."

" Believe ! What is the matter ? — Tell me
what you feel."

" I could not, sir : no words could tell you
what I feel. I wish this present hour would
never end : who knows with what fate the
next may come charged?"

"This is hypochondria, Jane. You have
been over excited, or over fatigued."

"Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?"

" Calm? — no: but happy, — to the heart's core."

I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss
in his face : it was ardent and flushed.

" Give me your confidence, Jane," he said :
" relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses
it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear ?
— that I shall not prove a good husband?"

" It is the idea farthest from my thoughts."

" Are you apprehensive of the new sphere
you are about to enter ? — of the new life into
which you are passing?"

JANE EYRE. 265

"No."

" You puzzle me, Jane : your look and tone
of sorrowful audacity perplex and pain me. I
want an explanation."

"Then, sir, — listen. You were from home
last night?"

" I was : I know that ; and you hinted a
while ago at something which had happened
in my absence : — nothing, probably, of conse-
quence ; but, in short, it has disturbed you.
Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said some-
thing, perhaps ? or you have overheard the
servants talk ? — your sensitive self-respect has
been wounded?"

" No, sir." It struck twelve — I waited till
the time-piece had concluded its silver chime,
and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and
then I proceeded.

* All day, yesterday, I was very busy, and
very happy in my ceaseless bustle ; for I am
not, as you seem to think, troubled by any
haunting fears about the new sphere, et cetera :
I think it a glorious thing to have the hope
of living with you, because I love you. — No,
sir, don't caress me now — let me talk undis-

266 JANE EYRE.

turbed. Yesterday I trusted well in Provi-
dence, and believed that events were working
together for your good and mine: it was a
fine day, if you recollect — the calmness of the
air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting
your safety or comfort on your journey. I
walked a little while on the pavement after
tea, thinking of you ; and I beheld you in
imagination so near me, I scarcely missed
your actual presence. I thought of the life that
lay before me — your life, sir — an existence
more expansive and stirring than my own : as
much more so as the depths of the sea to
which the brook runs, are than the shallows
of its own strait channel. I wondered why
moralists call this world a dreary wilderness :
for me it blossomed like a rose. Just at sunset,
the air turned cold and the sky cloudy : I
went in. Sophie called me up stairs to look at
my wedding-dress, which they had just brought;
and under it in the box I found your present, —
the veil which, in your princely extravagance,
you sent for from London : resolved, I suppose,
since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into
accepting something as costly. I smiled as I

JANE EYRE. 267

unfolded it, and devised how I would teaze
you about your aristocratic tastes, and your
efforts to masque your plebeian bride in the
attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would
carry down to you the square of unembroidered
blonde I had myself prepared as a covering for
my low-born head, and ask if that was not
good enough for a woman who could bring
her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor con-
nections. I saw plainly how you would look ;
and heard your impetuous republican answers,
and your haughty disavowal of any necessity
on your part to augment your wealth, or ele-
vate your standing, by marrying either a purse
or a coronet."

" How well you read me, you witch ! " inter-
posed Mr. Bochester : " but what did you find
in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you
find poison, or a dagger, that you look so
mournful now?"

" No, no, sir ; besides the delicacy and rich-
ness'of the fabric, I found nothing save Fair-
fax Rochester's pride ; and that did not scare
me, because I am used to the sight of the
demon. But, sir, as it grew dark, the wind

268 JANE EYRE.

rose : it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows
now — wild and high — but "with a sullen, moan-
ing sound " far more eerie. I wished you were
at home. I came into this room, and the sight
of the empty chair and fireless hearth chilled
me. For some time after I went to bed, I
could not sleep — a sense of anxious excitement
distressed me. The gale still rising, seemed to
my ear to muffle a mournful undersound ;
whether in the house or abroad I could not at
first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at
every lull : at last I made out it must be some
dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it
ceased. On sleeping, I continued in dreams
the idea of a dark and gusty night. I conti-
nued also the wish to be with you, and expe-
rienced a strange, regretful consciousness of
some barrier dividing us. During all my first
sleep, I was following the windings of an un-
known road; total obscurity environed me; rain
pelted me; I was burdened with the charge of a
little child : a very small creature, too young and
feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold
arms, and wailed piteously in my ear. I
thought, sir, that you were on the road a long

JANE EYRE. 269

way before me; and I strained every nerve to
overtake you, and made effort on effort to
utter your name and entreat you to stop —
but my movements were fettered; and my
voice still died away inarticulate ; while you,
I felt, withdrew farther and farther every
moment."

"And these dreams weigh on your spirits
now, Jane, when I am close to you ? Little
nervous subject ! Forget visionary woe, and
think only of real happiness ! You say you
love me, Janet: yes — I will not forget that;
and you cannot deny it. Those words did not
die inarticulate on your lips. I heard them
clear and soft : a thought too solemn per-
haps, but sweet as music — * I think it is a
glorious thing to have the hope of living with
you, Edward, because I love you.' — Do you
love me, Jane? repeat it."

" I do, sir — I do, with my whole heart."
" Well," he said, after some minutes silence,
" it is strange : but that sentence has pene-
trated my breast painfully. Why? I think
because you said it with such an earnest, reli-
gious energy ; and because your upward gaze

270 JANE EYRE.

at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth,
and devotion : it is too much as if some spirit
were near me. Look wicked, Jane ; as you
know well how to look ; coin one of your wild,
sly, provoking smiles ; tell me you hate me —
teaze me, vex me; do anything but move
me: I would rather be incensed than sad-
dened."

" I will teaze you and vex you to your
heart's content, when I have finished my tale :
but hear me to the end."

" I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I
thought I had found the source of your melan-
choly in a dream ! "

I shook my head. " What ! is there more ?
But I will not believe it to be anything im-
portant. I warn you of incredulity before-
hand. Go on."

The disquietude of his air, the somewhat
apprehensive impatience of his manner, sur-
prised me : but I proceeded.

" I dreamt another dream, sir : that Thorn-
field Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of
bats and owls. I thought that of all the
stately front nothing remained but a shell-like

JANE EYRE. 271

wall, very high and very fragile looking. I
wandered, on a moonlight night, through the
grass-grown enclosure within : here I stum-
bled over a marble hearth, and there over a
fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a
shawl, I still carried the unknown little child :
I might not lay it down anywhere, however
tired were my arms — however much its weight
impeded my progress, I must retain it. I
heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on
the road : I was sure it was you ; and you were
departing for many years, and for a distant
country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic
perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of
you from the top: the stones rolled from
under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped
gave way, the child clung round my neck in
terror, and almost strangled me: at last I
gained the summit. I saw you like a speck
on a white track, lessening every moment.
The blast blew so strong I could not stand. I
sat down on the narrow ledge ; I hushed the
scared infant in my lap : you turned an angle
of the road ; I bent forward to take a last

272 JANE EYRE.

look; the wall crumbled ; I was shaken ; the
child rolled from my knee ; I lost my balance,
fell, and woke."

" Now, Jane, that is all."

" All the preface, sir ; the tale is yet to
come. On waking, a gleam dazzled my
eyes : I thought — oh, it is daylight ! But
I was mistaken : it was only candle-light.
Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was
a light on the dressing-table, and the door of
the closet, where, before going to bed, I had
hung my wedding dress and veil, stood open :
I heard a rustling there. I asked, ' Sophie,
what are you doing?' No one answered : but
a form emerged from the closet : it took the
light, held it aloft and surveyed the garments
pendant from the portmanteau. * Sophie !
Sophie ! ' I again cried : and still it was silent.
I had risen up in bed, I bent forward : first,
surprise, then bewilderment, came over me;
and then my blood crept cold through my
veins. Mr. Rochester, this was not Sophie, it
was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax : it was
not — no, I was sure of it, and am still — it

JANE EYRE. 273

was not even that strange woman, Grace
Poole."

" It must have been one of them," inter-
rupted my master.

" No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the con-
trary. The shape standing before me had
never crossed my eyes within the precincts of
Thornfield Hall before : the height, the con-
tour were new to me."

" Describe it, Jane."

" It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large,
with thick and dark hair hanging long down
her back. I know not what dress she had on :
it was white and straight ; but whether gown,
sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell."

" Did you see her face?"

" Not at first. But presently she took my
veil from its place ; she held it up, gazed at it
long, and then she threw it over her own head,
and turned to the mirror. At that moment I
saw the reflection of the visage and features
quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass."

" And how were they ?"

" Fearful and ghastly to me— -oh, sir, I never

VOL. II. t

274 jane eyre;

saw a face like it ! It was a discoloured face —
it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the
roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened
inflation of the lineaments ! "

" Ghosts are usually pale, Jane."

" This, sir, was purple : the lips were swelled
and dark ; the brow furrowed ; the black eye-
brows widely raised over the blood-shot eyes.
Shall I tell you of what it reminded me ? "

" You may."

" Of the foul German spectre — the Vam-
pyre.',

"Ah!— What did it do?"

" Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt
head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on
the floor, trampled on them."

"Afterwards?"

"It drew aside the window-curtain and
looked out : perhaps it saw dawn approaching,
for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door.
Just at my bedside, the figure stopped : the
fiery eye glared upon me — she thrust up her
candle close to my face, and extinguished it
under my eyes. I was aware her wild visage

JANE EYRE. 275

flamed over mine, and I lost consciousness :
for the second time in my life — only the second
time — I became insensible from terror."

" Who was with you when you revived ? "

" No one, sir ; but the broad day. I rose,
bathed my head and face in water, drank a
long draught; felt that though enfeebled I
was not ill, and determined that to none but
you would I impart this vision. Now, sir,
tell me who and what that woman was ?"

" The creature of an over-stimulated brain ;
that is certain. I must be careful of you, my
treasure : nerves like yours were not made for
rough handling."

" Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in
fault ; the thing was real : the transaction ac-
tually took place."

" And your previous dreams : were they real
too? Is Thornfield Hall a ruin? Am I
severed from you by insuperable obstacles ?
Am I leaving you without a tear — without a
kiss — without a word?"

" Not yet."

" Am I about to do it ? — Why the day is

t 2

276 JANE EYRE.

already commenced which is to bind us in-
dissolubly ; and when we are once united, there
shall be no recurrence of these mental terrors :
I guarantee that."

" Mental terrors, sir ! I wish I could be-
lieve them to be only such : I wish, it more
now than ever ; since even you cannot explain
to me the mystery of that awful visitant."

" And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must
have been unreal."

" But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising
this morning, and when I looked round the
room to gather courage and comfort from the
cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full
daylight — there, on the carpet — I saw what
gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis, — the
veil, torn from top to bottom in two halfs !"

I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder ; he
hastily flung his arms round me : " Thank
God ! " he exclaimed, " that if anything malig-
nant did come near you last night, it was only
the veil that was harmed. — Oh, to think what
might have happened ! "

He drew his breath short, and strained

JANE EYRE. 277

me so close to him I could scarcely pant.
After some minutes' silence, he continued,
cheerily : —

" Now, Janet, I '11 explain to you all about
it. It was half dream, half reality : a woman
did, I doubt not, enter your room ; and that
woman was — must have been — Grace Poole.
You call her a strange being yourself: from all
you know, you have reason so to call her —
what did she do to me ? what to Mason ? In
a state between sleeping and waking, you
noticed her entrance and her actions; but
feverish, almost delirious as you were, you
ascribed to her a goblin appearance different
from her own : the long dishevelled hair, the
swelled black face, the exaggerated stature,
were figments of imagination, results of night-
mare ; the spiteful tearing of the veil was real :
and it is like her. I see you would ask why I
keep such a woman in my house : when we
have been married a year and a day, I will tell
you; but not now. Are you satisfied, Jane?
Do you accept my solution of the mystery V*

I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me

278 JANE EYRE.

the only possible one : satisfied I was not, but
to please him I endeavoured to appear so —
relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered
him with a contented smile. And now, as it
was long past one, I prepared to leave him.

" Does not Sophie sleep with Adele in the
nursery?" he asked, as I lit my candle.

"Yes, sir."

"And there is room enough in Adele's little
bed for you. You must share it with her to-
night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident
you have related should make you nervous,
and I would rather you did not sleep alone :
promise me to go to the nursery."

" I shall be very glad to do so, sir."

" And fasten the door securely on the in-
side. Wake Sophie when you go up stairs,
under pretence of requesting her to rouse you
in good time to-morrow ; for you must be
dressed and have finished breakfast before
eight. And now, no more sombre thoughts :
chase dull care away, Janet. Don't you hear to
what soft whispers the wind has fallen 1 and
there is no more beating of rain against the

JANE EYRE. 279

window-panes : look here — (he lifted up the
curtain) it is a lovely night ! "

It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless :
the clouds, now trooping before the wind, which
had shifted to the west, were filing off east-
ward in long, silvered columns. The moon
shone peacefully.

" Well," said Mr. Rochester, gazing in-
quiringly into my eyes, "how is my Janet
?»»

" The night is serene, sir ; and so am I."
" And you will not dream of separation and
sorrow to-night ; but of happy love and bliss-
ful union."

This prediction was but half fulfilled : I did
not indeed dream of sorrow, but as little did I
dream of joy ; for I never slept at all. With
little Adele in my arms, I watched the slumber
of childhood — so tranquil, so passionless, so
innocent — and waited for the coming day : all
my life was awake and astir in my frame ;
and as soon as the sun rose, I rose too. I re-
member Adele clung to me as I left her : I re-
member I kissed her as I loosened her little

280 JANE EYRE.

hands from my neck; and I cried over her
with strange emotion, and quitted her because
I feared my sobs would break her still sound
repose. She seemed the emblem of my past
life; and he, I was now to array myself to meet,
the dread, but adored, type of my unknown
future day.

JANE EYRE. 281

CHAPTER XL

Sophie came at seven to dress me; she was very
long indeed in accomplishing her task : so long
that Mr. Rochester, grown, I suppose, impatient
of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not
come. She was just fastening my veil (the
plain square of blond after all) to my hair with
a brooch ; I hurried from under her hands as
soon as I could.

" Stop ! " she cried in French. " Look at
yourself in the mirror : you have not taken one
peep."

So I turned at the door : I saw a robed and
veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it
seemed almost the image of a stranger.
" Jane !" called a voice, and I hastened down.
I was received at the foot of the stairs by
Mr. Rochester.

282 JANE EYRE.

" Lingerer," he said, " my brain is on fire
with impatience ; and you tarry so long !"

He took me into the dining-room, surveyed
me keenly all over, pronounced me " fair as a
lily, and not only the pride of his life, but the
desire of his eyes," and then telling me he
would give me but ten minutes to eat some
breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately
hired servants, a footman, answered it.

" Is John getting the carriage ready ?"

"Yes, sir."

" Is the luggage brought down ?"

" They are bringing it down now, sir."

" Go you to the church : see if Mr. Wood
(the clergyman) and the clerk are there : re-
tarn and tell me."

The church, as the reader knows, was but
just beyond the gates ; the footman soon re-
turned.

" Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on
his surplice."

" And the carriage ?"

"The horses are harnessing."

"We shall not want it to go to church; but
it must be ready the moment we return: all

JANE EYKE. 283

the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped
on, and the coachman in his seat."

"Yes, sir."

" Jane, are you ready ?"

I rose. There were no groomsmen, no
bridesmaids, no relatives to wait for or marshal :
none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax
stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain
have spoken to her, but my hand was held by
a grasp of iron : I was hurried along by a stride
I could hardly follow; and to look at Mr.
Rochester's face was to feel that not a second
of delay would be tolerated for any purpose.
I wonder what other bridegroom ever looked
as he did — so bent up to a purpose, so grimly
resolute ; or who, under such steadfast brows,
ever revealed such flaming and flashing
eyes.

I know not whether the day was fair or
foul ; in descending the drive, I gazed neither
on sky nor earth : my heart was with my eyes ;
and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's
frame. I wanted to see the invisible thing on
which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten
a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the

284 JANE EYRE.

thoughts whose force he seemed breasting and
resisting.

At the churchyard wicket he stopped : he
discovered I was quite out of breath. " Am I
cruel in my love 1 " he said. " Delay an instant :
lean on me, Jane."

And now I can recall the picture of the
gray old house of God rising calm before me,
of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a
ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember
something, too, of the green grave-mounds ;
and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of
Strangers, straying amongst the low hillocks,
and reading the mementoes graven on the few
mossy head-stones. I noticed them, because,
as they saw us, they passed round to the back
of the church ; and I doubted not they were
going to enter by the side-aisle door, and
witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester
they were not observed; he was earnestly
looking at my face, from which the blood had,
I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my
forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold.
When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked
gently with me up the path to the porch.

JANE EYRE. 285

We entered the quiet and humble temple ;
the priest waited in his white surplice at the
lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was
still: two shadows only moved in a remote
corner. My conjecture had been correct : the
strangers had slipped in before us, and they
now stood by the vault of the Rochesters,
their backs towards us, viewing through the
rails the old, time-stained marble tomb, where
a kneeling angel guarded the remains of
Darner de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor
in the time of the civil wars ; and of Elizabeth,
his wife.

Our place was taken at the communion-
rails. Hearing a cautious step behind me, I
glanced over my shoulder : one of the stran-
gers— a gentleman, evidently — was advancing
up the chancel. The service began. The
explanation of the intent of matrimony was
gone through ; and then the clergyman came
a step further forward, and bending slightly
towards Mr. Rochester, went on.

" I require and charge you both (as ye will
answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when,
the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed)

286 JANE EYRE.

that if either of you know any impediment
why ye may not lawfully he joined together in
matrimony, ye do now confess it ; for he ye
well assured that so many as are coupled
together otherwise than God's Word doth
allow, are not joined together hy God, neither
is their matrimony lawful."

He paused, as the custom is. When is
the pause after that sentence ever "broken by
reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred
years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted
his eyes from his hook, and had held his
breath but for a moment, was proceeding : his
hand was already stretched towards Mr. Ro-
chester, as his lips unclosed to ask, " Wilt
thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?"
— when a distinct and near voice said : —

" The marriage cannot go on : I declare the
existence of an impediment."

The clergyman looked up at the speaker,
and stood mute ; the clerk did the same ; Mr.
Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake
had rolled under his feet : taking a firmer
footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he
said, " Proceed."

JANE EYRE. 287

Profound silence fell when he had uttered
that word, with deep but low intonation. Pre-
sently Mr. Wood said : —

" I cannot proceed without some investiga-
tion into what has been asserted, and evidence
of its truth or falsehood."

" The ceremony is quite broken off," sub-
joined the voice behind us. " I am in a con-
dition to prove my allegation : an insuperable
impediment to this marriage exists."

Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he
stood stubborn and rigid : making no move-
ment, but to possess himself of my hand.
What a hot and strong grasp he had ! — and
how like quarried marble was his pale, firm,
massive front at this moment ! How his
eyes shone, still, watchful, and yet wild be-
neath !

Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. " What is
the nature of the impediment?" he asked.
" Perhaps it may be got over — explained
away ? "

" Hardly," was the answer : " I have called
it insuperable, and I speak advisedly."

The speaker came^ forwards, and leaned on

288 JANE EYRE.

the rails. He continued, uttering each word
distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly.

" It simply consists in the existence of a
previous marriage : Mr. Rochester has a wife
now living."

My nerves vibrated to these low-spoken
words as they had never vibrated to thunder —
my blood felt their subtle violence as it had
never felt frost or fire : but I was collected,
and in no danger of swooning. I looked at
Mr. Rochester : I made him look at me. His
whole face was colourless rock : his eye was
both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing :
he seemed as if he would defy all things.
Without speaking ; without smiling ; without
seeming to recognise in me a human being, he
only twined my waist with his arm, and riveted
me to his side.

"Who are you?" he asked of the intruder.

" My name is Briggs — a solicitor of

street, London."

" And you would thrust on me a wife V*

" I would remind you of your lady's ex-
istence, sir : which the law recognises, if you
do not."

JANE EYRE. 289

" Favour me with an account of her — with
her name, her parentage, her place of
abode."

" Certainly." Mr. Briggs calmly took a
paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort
of official, nasal voice : —

" ' I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of

October, a.d. , (a date of fifteen years

back) Edward Fairfax Rochester of Thorn-
field Hall, in the county of , and of Fern-
dean Manor, in shire, England, was

married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta
Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant,

and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole — at

church, Spanish-town, Jamaica. The record
of the marriage will be found in the register
of that church — a copy of it is now in my
possession. Signed, Richard Mason.' "

" That — if a genuine document — may prove
I have been married, but it does not prove
that the woman mentioned therein as my wife
is still living."

" She was living three months ago," re-
turned the lawyer.

" How do you know?"

VOL. II. u

290 JANE EYRE.

" I have a witness to the fact ; whose testi-
mony even yon, sir, will scarcely controvert."

" Produce him — or go to hell."

"I will produce him first — he is on the
spot : Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step
forward."

Mr. Rochester on hearing the name set his
teeth ; he experienced, too, a sort of strong con-
vulsive quiver : near to him as I was, I felt
the spasmodic movement of fury or despair
run through his frame. The second stranger,
who had hitherto lingered in the background,
now drew near ; a pale face looked over the
solicitor's shoulder — yes, it was Mason him-
self. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him.
His eye, as I have often said, was a black
eye : it had now a tawny, nay a bloody light in
its gloom ; and his face flushed — olive cheek
and hueless forehead received a glow, as from
spreading, ascending heart-fire ; and he stirred,
lifted his strong arm — he could have struck
Mason — dashed him on the church-floor —
shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his
body — but Mason shrank away, and cried
faintly, " Good God !" Contempt fell cool on

JANE EYRE. 291

Mr. Rochester — his passion died as if a blight
had shrivelled it up : he only asked, " What
have you to say?"

An inaudible reply escaped Mason's white
lips.

" The devil is in it if you cannot answer dis-
tinctly. I again demand, what have you to
say?"

" Sir — sir — " interrupted the clergyman*
" do not forget you are in a sacred place."
Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently,
" Are you aware, sir, whether or not this gentle-
man's wife is still living?"

" Courage," urged the lawyer, — " speak out."

" She is now living at Thornfield Hall y
said Mason, in more articulate tones : " I saw
her there last April. I am her brother."

"At Thornfield Hall!" ejaculated the
clergyman. " Impossible ! I am an old resi-
dent in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never
heard of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall."

I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester's
lip and he muttered : —

" No — by God ! I took care that none should
hear of it — or of her under that name." He

v 2

292 JANE EYRE,

mused — for ten minutes he held counsel with
himself: he formed his resolve, and announced
it:—

" Enough — all shall bolt out at once, like
the bullet from the barrel. — Wood, close your
book and take off your surplice ; John Green,
(to the clerk) leave the church : there will be
no wedding to-day :" the man obeyed.

Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and reck-
lessly: "Bigamy is an ugly word! — I meant,
however, to be a bigamist: but fate has out-
manoeuvred me; or Providence has checked
me, — perhaps the last. I am little better than
a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor
there would tell me, deserve no doubt the
sternest judgments of God, — even to the
quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentle-
men, my plan is broken up ! — what this lawyer
and his client say is true : I have been mar-
ried ; and the woman to whom I was married
lives ! You say you never heard of a Mrs.
Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood :
but I daresay you have many a time inclined
your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic
kept there under watch and ward. Some

JANE EYRE. 293

have whispered to you that she is my bastard
half-sister ; some, my cast-off mistress ; — I now
inform you that she is my wife, whom I mar-
ried fifteen years ago, — Bertha Mason by
name ; sister of this resolute personage, who is
now, with his quivering limbs and white cheeks,
showing you what a stout heart men may
bear. Cheer up, Dick ! — never fear me ! — I 'd
almost as soon strike a woman as you. Bertha
Mason is mad ; and she came of a mad family :
— idiots and maniacs through three genera-
tions ! Her mother, the Creole, was both a
mad woman and a drunkard ! — as I found out
after I had wed the daughter : for they were
silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a
dutiful child, copied her parent in both points.
I had a charming partner — pure, wise, modest :
you can fancy that I was a happy man. — I went
through rich scenes ! Oh ! my experience has
been heavenly, if you only knew it ! But I owe
you no further explanation. Briggs, Wood,
Mason, — I invite you all to come up to the
house and visit Mrs. Poole's patient, and my
wife I — You shall see what sort of a being I
was cheated into espousing, and judge whether

294 JANE EYRE.

or not I had a right to break the compact, and
seek sympathy with something at least human.
This girl," he continued, looking at me, "knew
no more than you, "Wood, of the disgusting
secret : she thought all was fair and legal ; and
never dreamt she was going to be entrapped
into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch,
already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted
partner ! Come, all of you, follow ! "

Still holding me fast, he left the church :
the three gentlemen came after. At the front
door of the hall we found the carriage.

" Take it back to the coach-house, John,"
said Mr. Rochester, coolly ; " it will not be
wanted to-day."

At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele,
Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet and greet us.

"To the right about — every soul!" cried
the master : " away with your congratulations !
Who wants them ? — Not I ! — they are fifteen
years too late ! "

He passed on and ascended the stairs, still
holding my hand, and still beckoning the
gentlemen to follow him ; which they did.
We mounted the first staircase, passed up the

JANE EYRE. 295

gallery, proceeded to the third story : the low,
black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's master
key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with
its great bed, and its pictorial cabinet.

"You know this place, Mason," said our
guide ; " she bit and stabbed you here."

He lifted the hangings from the wall, un-
covering the second door : this, too, he opened.
In a room without a window, there burnt a
fire, guarded by a high and strong fender, and
a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain.
Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently
cooking something in a saucepan. In the
deep shade, at the further end of the room, a
figure ran backwards and forwards. What it
was, whether beast or human being, one could
not, at first sight, tell : it grovelled, seemingly,
on all fours ; it snatched and growled like some
strange wild animal : but it was covered with
clothing ; and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair,
wild as a mane, hid its head and face.

"Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!" said Mr.
Rochester. " How are you ? and how is your
charge to-day 1 "

" We 're tolerable, sir, I thank you," replied

296 JANE EYRE,

Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to
the hob : " rather snappish, but not 'rageous."

A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her
favourable report : the clothed hyena rose up,
and stood tall on its hind feet.

"Ah, sir, she sees you!" exclaimed Grace:
" you 'd better not stay."

" Only a few moments, Grace : you must
allow me a few moments."

" Take care then, sir ! — for God's sake, take
care ! ' '

The maniac bellowed : she parted her shaggy
locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her
visitors. I recognised well that purple face, — ■
those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.

" Keep out of the way," said Mr. Eochester,
thrusting her aside : " she has no knife now, I
suppose ? and I 'm on my guard."

" One never knows what she has, sir; she is
so cunning: it is not in mortal discretion to
fathom her craft."

" We had better leave her," whispered
Mason.

" Go to the devil!" was his brother-in-law's
recommendation.

JANE EYRE. 297

" Ware ! " cried Grace. The three gentle-
men retreated simultaneously. Mr. Rochester
flung me behind him ; the lunatic sprang and
grappled his throat viciously, and laid her
teeth to his cheek : they struggled. She was
a big woman, in stature almost equalling her
husband, and corpulent besides : she showed
virile force in the contest — more than once she
almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He
could have settled her with a well-planted
blow ; but he would not strike : he would only
wrestle. At last he mastered her arms;
Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned
them behind her : with more rope, which was
at hand, he bound her to a chair. The opera-
tion was performed amidst the fiercest yells,
and the most convulsive plunges. Mr.
Rochester then turned to the spectators : he
looked at them with a smile both acrid and
desolate.

" That is my wife" said he. " Such is the
sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know —
such are the endearments which are to solace
my leisure hours ! And this is what I wished
to have (laying his hand on my shoulder) :

298 JANE EYRE.

this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet
at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the
gambols of a demon. I wanted her just as a
change after that fierce ragout. Wood and
Briggs, look at the difference! Compare
these clear eyes with the red balls yonder — \
this face with that mask — this form with that
bulk; then judge me, priest of the Gospel and
man of the law, and remember, with what
judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off
with you now. I must shut up my prize."

We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a
moment behind us, to give some further
order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed
me as we descended the stair.

" You, madam," said he, " are cleared from
all blame : your uncle will be glad to hear it
— if, indeed, he should be still living — when
Mr. Mason returns to Madeira."

" My uncle ! What of him ? Do you know
him?"

" Mr. Mason does : Mr. Eyre has been
the Funchal correspondent of his house for
some years. When your uncle received your
letter intimating the contemplated union be-

JANE EYRE. 299

tween yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr.
Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit
his health, on his way back to Jamaica, hap-
pened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned
the intelligence ; for he knew that my client
here was acquainted with a gentleman of the
name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished
and distressed, as you may suppose, revealed
the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am
sorry to say, is now on a sickbed ; from
which, considering the nature of his disease
— decline — and the stage it has reached, it
is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not
then hasten to England himself, to extricate
you from the snare into which you had fallen,
but he implored Mr. Mason to use no time in
taking steps to prevent the false marriage.
He referred him to me for assistance. I used
all despatch, and am thankful I was not too
late : as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I
not morally certain that your uncle will be
dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise
you to accompany Mr. Mason back : but as it
is, I think you had better remain in England
till you can hear further, either from or of Mr.

300 JANE EYRE.

Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?"
he inquired of Mr. Mason.

" No, no — let us be gone,'* was the anxious
reply; and without waiting to take leave of
Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the
hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange
a few sentences, either of admonition or re-
proof, with his haughty parishioner : this duty
done, he too departed.

I heard him go as I stood at the half open
door of my own room, to which I had now
withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself
in, fastened the bolt that none might intrude,
and proceeded — not to weep, not to mourn, I
was yet too calm for that, but — mechanically to
take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the
stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I thought,
for the last time. I then sat down : I felt
weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a
table, and my head dropped on them. And
now I thought: till now I had only heard,
seen, moved — followed up and down where
I was led or dragged — watched event rush on
event, disclosure open beyond disclosure : but
now, I thought.

JANE EYRE. 301

The morning had been a quiet morning
enough — all except the brief scene with the
lunatic : the transaction in the church had not
been noisy ; there was no explosion of passion,
no loud altercation, no dispute, no defiance or
challenge, no tears, no sobs : a few words had
been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection
to the marriage made ; some stern, short ques-
tions put by Mr. Rochester; answers, expla-
nations given, evidence adduced ; an open ad-
mission of the truth had been uttered by my
master ; then the living proof had been seen ;
the intruders were gone, and all was over.

I was in my own room as usual — just myself,
without obvious change : nothing had smitten
me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet,
where was the Jane Eyre of yesterday ? — where
was her life ? — where were her prospects ?

Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, ex-
pectant woman — almost a bride — was a cold,
solitary girl again : her life was pale ; her pros-
pects were desolate. A Christmas frost had
come at midsummer : a white December storm
had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe
apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on

302 JANE EYRE.

bay-field and corn-field lay a frozen shroud :
lanes which last night blushed full of flowers,
to-day were pathless with untrodden snow ;
and the woods, which twelve hours since waved
leafy and fragrant as groves between the
tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white
as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My hopes
were all dead — struck with a subtle doom,
such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born
in the land of Egypt. I looked on my che-
rished wishes, yesterday so blooming and
glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses
that could never revive. I looked at my love :
that feeling which was my master's — which he
had created ; it shivered in my heart, like a
suffering child in a cold cradle ; sickness and
anguish had seized it : it could not seek Mr.
Rochester's arms — it could not derive warmth
from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn
to him ; for faith was blighted — confidence
destroyed ! Mr. Rochester was not to me
what he had been; for he was not what I
had thought him. I would not ascribe vice
to him ; I would not say he had betrayed me :
but the attribute of stainless truth was gone

JANE EYRE. 303

from his idea; and from his presence I must
go : that I perceived well. When — how — whi-
ther, I could not yet discern : but he himself,
I doubted not, would hurry me from Thorn-
field. Real affection, it seemed, he could not
have for me ; it had been only fitful passion :
that was balked ; he would want me no more.
I should fear even to cross his path now : my
view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind
had been my eyes ! How weak my conduct !
My eyes were covered and closed : eddying
darkness seemed to swim round me, and re-
flection came in as black and confused a
flow. Self-abandoned, relaxed and effortless,
I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-
up bed of a great river; I heard a flood
loosened in remote mountains, and felt the
torrent come : to rise I had no will, to flee
I had no strength. I lay faint ; longing to
be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-
like within me — a remembrance of God : it
begot an unuttered prayer : these words went
wandering up and down in my rayless mind,
as something that should be whispered ; but
no energy was found to express them : —

304 JANE EYRE.

" Be not far from me, for trouble is near :
there is none to help."

It was near : and as I had lifted no pe-
tition to heaven to avert it — as I had neither
joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor
moved my lips — it came : in full, heavy swing
the torrent poured over me. The whole con-
sciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my
hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed
full and mighty above me in one sullen mass.
That bitter hour cannot be described : in truth,
"the waters came into my soul; I sank in
deep mire : I felt no standing ; I came into
deep waters ; the floods overflowed me."

END OF VOLUME II.

Printed by Stewart and Murray, Old Bailey

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